


Winds of Change

by Setcheti



Series: Tales From the Land of Ever After [2]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Cracked Video (Fiction - Non RPF), Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Blood and Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Danger, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 23:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18271337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: With the queen away, it was almost inevitable that someone would try something. But they may have underestimated how resourceful Arendelle’s king can be…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who didn't see it in the first story's comments: John Kepperson is CRACKED's original character, not mine!

Evening was just beginning to fall over the Kingdom of Arendelle, and her king was watching it from a high window, somewhat pensively taking in the way the not-yet-setting sun’s rays were glinting off the sea’s placid waves. He was more wondering what his wife was doing and if she was safe than he was admiring the view, even though he knew she was perfectly capable of seeing to her own safety. Queen Elsa had left not quite a fortnight ago, gone to attend a trade summit of all those whose ships plied the Northern seas, and she’d even left in the company of Captain Dezhnev of Rasseeyah, who was attending the same summit on behalf of his royal cousin, Tzar Ivan. No, it wasn’t so much that John was worried – although, like any loving young husband, he most certainly was – but more that he missed her company and wished she hadn’t gone even though he knew the summit was quite an important one and Arendelle had most certainly needed to be represented.

Aside from that, however, he was also worried about their kingdom. Arendelle’s recent history had been somewhat tumultuous, which was why he hadn’t gone with his wife as he should have liked to – there was just enough disaffection left in the kingdom that he didn’t dare. Someone had to stay on the throne, and look after the children, and as Elsa was the one most able to protect herself and her kingdom’s interests if all was not as it should be at the summit, so it was John who had to stay behind. Things had been fine at first, quiet even, but over the past few days John had felt himself overtaken by a sort of nervous anticipation, as though something were about to happen and he was only waiting for it. So he’d taken to watching out the castle’s windows on a regular basis, mainly in the direction of the main gates, missing his wife but also keeping his eyes open for anything which seemed amiss.

There hadn’t been anything to see on any other evening, but on this one John’s attention was drawn away from the waves by the bobbing lights of torches being held aloft, approaching the castle gates. They massed there and he thought for a moment the trouble would all be contained outside the castle walls…but then he saw the restraining posts being pulled back and knew what was about to happen – he’d been hoping it wouldn’t, of course, but being a practical man he’d always known it could and that the absence of his wife could be seen as a golden opportunity for anyone wishing to stage a takeover attempt. He thought quickly, then ran for his Royal Huntsman’s rooms, hoping Claude hadn’t already left for his night hunt as he’d been planning to earlier.

Luck was with him; Claude was still there. “That circumstance we’ve discussed, it’s happening,” he said without preamble. “Tell the nurse I sent for her, then take William and Annabelle and get them out of here – to King Kristoff if possible, to Lord Nilsson’s if not, or even up into the mountains if you have to. Just get them to safety.”

Claude was already picking up his travel bag; he glanced around the room, snatched up an empty bag lined with fur that he thought would do to carry the Princess Annabelle in. “My wife…”

“I’ll send her out one of the side gates with a market basket, and tell her to get to Lord Nilsson’s and stay there,” his king assured him. Claude had married Maiken, the castle’s cook, the previous winter, and they were even now expecting their first child; if they hadn’t been, John would have sent Maiken with her husband and the children. “I’m going now – I’ll meet the bastards at the doors to slow them down.” He clasped Claude’s arm. “If this becomes very bad, Claude…take our families back to Valeureux and keep them there, do you understand?”

Claude returned the arm-clasp, nodding, feeling too overwhelmed to trust his voice…then turned and ran for the royal wing. He could hear his king’s boots running in the opposite direction, down toward the kitchens, and he sent up a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening that it wouldn’t get that bad.

 

John sent Maiken off ‘to market’ just as he’d said he would, letting her out one of the small stone servants’ doors with his own master key. There was no one else to send off, as none of the maids were anywhere to be seen and Jor, the old steward, had died the previous winter, so he hid the key on his person and straightened his clothing before marching to the castle’s front hall. He could hear a commotion outside on the steps, and he had to be rather stern with the guards to get them to open the doors. “No,” he said quietly when one of them lifted the spear he was carrying. “There are too many, you’d be throwing your life away. If we’re lucky, all they want is surrender.”

One guard’s eyes widened. “But, Your Majesty…”

“You’d rather I let them kill all of you to make me capitulate?” John asked, and did not quite smile when the man grimaced. “This had to be planned, Stuart, with help from both inside and out – they waited until the queen was gone to try it, after all. Now go on, open the doors and let’s greet our visitors politely. Oh, and whoever was on the gates let them in, I saw it, so keep that in the back of your mind.”

Stuart nodded, and then he and his fellow guard pulled open the heavy doors. His king stood before them, just as he would were he greeting an arriving visitor…and then, once the doors were fully open and the invading force on the steps could be seen, he rolled his eyes. “Well you’re the last person I ever thought would dredge up enough manhood to try something like this,” John said. “I was under the impression you’d left Arendelle for good, Mr. Fritjof.”

Former councilor Fritjof sneered. He was wearing robes even finer than the ones he’d had before leaving Arendelle, and his bearing was haughty in the extreme. “I left only to find help to take back my kingdom, Mr. Kepperson.” The armed men with him rushed in, displacing and disarming the guards, and two of them took hold of John and made to disarm him as well…only to find that he wasn’t carrying any weapons. Fritjof made a show of looking him up and down. “I’m surprised, I’d expected you to have grown comfortably fat from living the royal life.”

“Running a kingdom is hard work,” John countered smoothly. “I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about that, though. Nice robes, by the way. I see you’ve kept your taste for velvet, and is that gold embroidery? If you’re serious about taking over, I hope you’ve brought your own washerwoman with you. Ours wouldn’t know what to do with that.”

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Stuart couldn’t help but smirk and neither could his fellow guard. King John hadn’t even worn velvet at his own coronation, and compared to their former councilors his wardrobe was restrained in the extreme. Even in his relatively plain everyday clothing, however, he still looked ten times as royal as Fritjof currently did.

Fritjof apparently knew this, because while he didn’t lose his sneer, the tips of his ears went red. “I wouldn’t expect a mere bookkeeper to understand pride of place, or propriety, for that matter,” he retorted. “You should have stayed in your place, John – but as you didn’t, I will put you back in it myself.” He smiled then, rather like a snake might smile at a vole. “And you will stay there…for the sake of the children, of course.”

John drew himself up. “You think I did not know that would be in the mind of anyone seeking to take the castle, Fritjof? Do you honestly think our children are still within your reach?”

“They’re still here, you lie! Guards, up to the nursery, bring the queen’s bastards to me this instant!”

“Up the stairs two flights, then take the right-hand staircase and go down the second corridor until you reach the blue door,” John said helpfully, and smiled when the foreign guard faltered and gave Fritjof a questioning look. “Oh, so he did know enough to tell you in advance where it was. You can go if you like, but it’s quite a walk with nothing for you at the end of it.”

Fritjof advanced on him until they were almost nose to nose; Stuart wasn’t able to prevent himself pulling at his own captors’ hold. “Where. Are. They!”

“Safe,” John told him. “I had time to see to that if nothing else before you made it in the gates. Have fun searching the castle. You won’t find them.”

“Then they can starve where they are!” Fritjof snapped. “You’ll tell me before you’ll let that happen, of course. Guards, take this usurper to the dungeons and leave him there. We’ll see if he feels more cooperative after a few days of the conditions he kept the old Chief Councilor in.”

John sneered back at him. “I’m surprised you’re not telling them to put me in the cell that floods.”

Fritjof smiled his snake-smile again. “What a good suggestion, John. Make sure he goes in that one, we don’t want to draw this show of stubbornness out.”

Stuart would have fought then, but a hard look from his king stopped him cold. He swallowed, shaking his head at his equally ready-to-fight fellow guard, and they allowed themselves to be led away in the opposite direction. He did turn his head for one last look, though, and saw King John walking calmly between the two mercenaries, back straight and head high. The sight put a lump in his throat. He did not think his king would be giving in to the traitor’s demands.

In fact, he suspected the man would die first.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The flooding cell was already ankle-deep in water when Fritjof’s men went looking, so they did not have a problem telling which one it was. They shoved John in, and he recovered his balance enough not to fall in the water – they’d been trying to make him, he knew – turned around and raised an eyebrow. “You should remember this, you know: This is not the way an honorable man, king or ex-chancellor or net-mender, treats someone who’s in his power. He’ll not be kind to you if you fail him.”

One man looked bothered by that, but the other punched his arm. “We won’t fail him,” his fellow said. “And he’s kind enough – you’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t last,” John told him, not sounding all that much bothered. “I’m only alive now because he’s afraid he won’t be able to manage the books, you know.”

He stayed where he was until they left, then went to the stone bench which served as a bed in this cell and sat down, pulling his feet up onto it to keep his boots from getting any wetter than they already were. The water would rise until it was nearly level with the top of the bench, but that wasn’t the bad thing some might have thought it was. He’d known that if he mentioned it Fritjof wouldn’t be able to resist putting him in the flooded cell, of course. It was cold, in the dungeons, and a man who was cold and wet would soon sicken – and a weak, sick man would be easier to handle, and a demoralizing sight for his former subjects as well. But John wasn’t going to let things get that far. Because he knew something about this cell that Fritjof did not.

He knew why it flooded with the tide the way it did. And he knew it happened by design, not by accident.

He sat and waited for the water to rise and fall again, thinking of his wife, trying not to think of their children, and hoping against hope that Claude had gotten safely clear of the castle and Maiken had made it to her brother, who was Lord Nilsson’s captain of the guard. Not because he expected rescue; he didn’t. He was sure the gates had been locked up tight in the wake of the invading force, probably no one but Elsa could get through them at this point and she wouldn’t be back for a month of days at the very earliest. That just had to have been planned.

The water rose, farther than he’d thought it would, and so by the time it ebbed again John was rather wetter than he’d hoped he’d be. He was also shivering, but he ignored that. The guards had left a lamp, and he had work to do by its fitful light once the water had retreated to below floor-level again. He listened, making sure no one was either waiting or coming to check on him, then got down on the floor and moved a stone. It swung aside, revealing a metal grate…with a keyhole in it. John unlocked it with only a little bit of difficulty, cautiously tested the grate, then swung the stone back into place and got back up on top of the bench, making himself as comfortable as he could. It was an exit he couldn’t use when the tide was out, he was fairly certain that without the cushion of the water the fall down the steeply narrow stone channel, wherever it led to, would quite possibly kill him, so he had a long, cold night ahead of him before the tide came back in with the dawn.

He did managed to doze off once or twice during the night, but he woke the moment he heard the water splash over the grate. He listened, hearing nothing, then got up and went to the door’s small barred window to look. It was dark, the lamp had long since gone out, but he couldn’t see or hear anyone in the stone corridor. Swiftly, knowing he might only have this one chance, he swung out the stone again and this time lifted the grate and slid into the water-filled hole beneath it boots-first, pulling the stone back into place so that no one would know how he’d gotten out – with any luck, Fritjof would assume treachery and rage at his own people for a while. Working in pitch black darkness now, and having already tucked his glasses safely away, he let himself sink lower into the gently rising water, then took a deep breath and let himself slide below the surface, gently lowering the grate back into place so that it wouldn’t fall shut and make a noise that might give him away.

And then, praying he wouldn’t run out of air, he shoved against the stone walls of the channel to propel himself downwards through the black water.

John was just starting to think the channel might be too long for him when the stone walls abruptly vanished and he found himself in free water. There was light – and there were also spots in front of his eyes, so he knew he had to find the surface quickly. He kicked his feet to propel himself upward toward the lighter blue, and within seconds broke the water’s surface and gulped in some much-needed air. He just hovered in the water, breathing, for a time, and once his lungs had forgiven him for depriving them he opened his eyes and looked around as best he could.

He was inside what in the very dim refracted light seemed like it might be a largish cave, and although the mouth of it appeared to be underwater there were still a good many feet of air over his head. And there was a niche of sorts carved into the side of the wall, one he thought he should be easily able to reach once the water rose a bit more. Sure enough, another few inches let him pull himself up into the niche, and no sooner had he stretched out than he felt sleep tugging at him. He considered it, then let himself relax. No one could find him here, he was as safe as he could be…and so he let himself sleep, hoping he wouldn’t dream of endless stone channels filled with water.

He didn’t – in fact, he didn’t dream at all. John wasn’t sure how long it was he slept, but he did feel better on awakening, although he was thirsty and knew he’d have to solve that problem sooner and not later. He looked around the cave again. He could make out the cave mouth now, an irregular patch of light down in the water, and he gauged his fitness for making that dive – he wasn’t a very strong swimmer, and he knew it – and decided he could do it. The distance wasn’t as far as he thought the channel had been, even accounting for having to go up the other side again. So he stretched, rubbing his arms and legs to warm them, and then once he felt he was sufficiently un-stiffened he slid out of the niche back into the water and swam for the light.

It proved to be a bit farther than he’d thought, but he made it out and up the other side before the spots came back. Rocks were all around him, shielding him – and the cave mouth, he assumed – from view of anyone who might be on the water nearby. And there were also stairs here, carved into the rock, worn by decades of wind and water but still usable. John pulled himself up onto them, sat for a few moments to recover from his swim, and then put his glasses back on and cautiously made his way up.

The stairs led up to another sheltered little hollow screened by rocks, and he was more than a little astonished to find himself right outside the castle walls…and right in front of a small stone door. His key opened it, and he found himself in a stone corridor with stairs that led up to yet another door. Which he only knew about by feeling it, of course, because he had no light with him and the corridor was pitch black. A bit of fumbling let him unlock this door as well, however, and it swung heavily open…

…Into the sitting room just off the royal bedchamber, where it had apparently been concealed by an oaken bookshelf. If he’d been able to safely, John would have laughed out loud. He closed up the passage again, taking a moment to marvel at how smoothly the no doubt long-disused mechanism operated, and then went into his rooms to see about getting a drink and getting himself dry and warm again. And after that, he was going to have to come up with a plan to take his kingdom back. Which he thought should certainly be easier than getting out of the dungeon had been.

 

After a drink, an apple from the bowl the servants kept filled for him in the sitting room, and an hour or so in front of the fire in dry clothes, John felt ready to venture back out of the room’s safety and see what he could do to kick Fritjof off his throne. He knew better than to think he could do it by himself, so his first plan was to see about finding the loyal guards, who had doubtless been locked up somewhere. Possibly in their own barracks, which he could get to using a back passage which let out near the stables.

He made it there without encountering anyone else, making note to himself that the lesser-known back passages and side doors might not be guarded. The door to the guards’ barracks, when he reached them, had a thick bar laid across it, which John sized up carefully before trying to lift – it wouldn’t to do make a noise and be discovered now. He moved the bar, making sure it hadn’t been jammed in, then lifted it free and carefully set it down flat. And then he pushed on the door, just a little bit. “Don’t attack me, I’m here to get you out,” he said in a loud whisper to the men he could hear shifting around on the other side. “I’m coming in now.”

He pushed open the door and slipped inside, ready to duck if they hadn’t believed him. Nobody attacked, though; they were all staring at him in disbelief.  And then, almost as one, they all bowed. John rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time for that. Are all of you here?”

One man cleared his throat. “No, Your Majesty. The guard-captain isn’t with us, he’s…with them.”

John winced. “Well, that’s bad, but it could be worse. Is everyone all right?” Nods. “Good, then let’s get out of here and get to work. They may have numbers almost equal to ours, but we have the element of surprise – and probably a veritable army waiting outside the gates if we can get them open.” He pointed at Stuart. “Your job is to get to the flag and change it to signal distress. The last thing we want is for some innocent ship or group of travelers to get caught up in this, and that will also let those in town know at least some of us are free. You two,” he indicated two others, “are to circle around the stables and conceal yourselves there. The minute those gates are open, I want one of you riding for the Kingdom of the Rock Trolls and the other riding for Lord Nilsson – assuming he isn’t already outside the gates, in which case you’re to join up with his men.”

“The prince and princess?”

“Safe. I took care of that before the traitor was fully in the gates. The Royal Huntsman and his wife were sent off as well, so we’ve no one to worry about except ourselves. The children’s nurse? I had sent for her before I came back down to the hall to meet our visitors, but she never arrived.”

One of the guards shook his head. “She’s most likely hiding somewhere, Your Majesty, as I believe a good many of the maids are. The former councilor was quite put out when there was no one in the kitchen to answer the bell.”

“Hiding is probably the best thing they could have done,” John said. “We won’t try to get any of them to come out until all the traitors are routed, if they haven’t been found already then they’re most likely safer where they are. Do we know where Fritjof’s men have stationed themselves? Or where you think they might?”

“There will be at least one outside the throne room,” the man who had spoken first said. “More in the entry, of course, and some on the gate.”

“There are four on the gate,” John told him. “I saw them when I came out to find all of you. I didn’t see the guard captain, so he must be off doing something else – if he’s even still alive.”

“Oh, he’s alive,” another guard confirmed grimly. “He’s the one who locked us in here, Your Majesty – he came running and rounded up all of us he could, said we were coming back here to regroup and gather more weapons. And then he dropped the bar across the door.” He swallowed. “He’s the one who had that put on, some months ago, so he’s likely known of this treachery for some time.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it once he’s caught,” John assured them all, although he was rather wondering if they could, or if the answer would be to anyone’s liking once they had it. The guard captain had been from one of the old Marked families, so the state of his loyalty should have been easy to tell…but obviously it hadn’t been, not even by John himself. “All right, we’ve talked long enough, now is the time for action. Those of you with tasks, get to them. I want you, Finn,” he indicated the man who had confirmed the guard captain as a traitor, “and one other to accompany me, everyone else is to scatter, hide, and lie in wait for the signal that it’s time to start going after these invaders. Capture if you can do so without risking yourselves overmuch, otherwise kill them where they stand.” The order fell with cold finality, and John saw several of the younger men swallow; there had not been such an instruction given to the Royal Guard their lifetimes, or in their fathers’ before them either. “Let’s go. Someone bar the door again once everyone is out, we don’t want to give ourselves away before we have to…”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Getting to the King’s Passage which led into the throne room was almost too easy, and a quick look inside the room revealed it to be empty. “He may not be out of bed yet,” John observed a low voice. “I’m sure staging a coup like this is tiring work. All right, I’ll stay here to confront him when he comes in, I need one of you to find some way to block the other end of the passage so he can’t use it and the other to stand ready to give the signal once I’ve got him in the room.” The older of the two guards gave him a questioning look, and he shook his head. “He’s a coward, Finn. I’m not sure what stirred his blood enough to get him to try this, but unless he’s gone insane or magic is involved he doesn’t have it in him to stand up to me on his own.  And it won’t look good to anyone he may have with them if he tries to hide behind them.”

Finn couldn’t help it, he smiled. “True, Your Majesty. Be careful.”

“You as well,” John told him. “We don’t know where the other traitors may be.”

Finn nodded and retreated back into the passage…and not a minute later came the sound of a scuffle, the quickly cut-off beginnings of what might have been a yell, and he came back out white-faced and holding a bloody knife in his hand. “Um…we know where one was, Your Majesty.”

“Damn. You’re all right?” Finn nodded. “All right, you go block the passage door as best you can, then be ready to go give the signal. Ring a bell if you have to, being subtle may not serve our purpose.” The man hesitated – quite obviously he was reluctant to leave his king alone – and John shook his head. “No, it will be fine – with the passage blocked no one can sneak in behind me, and I doubt anyone here would think to use the kitchen entrance. Go on now, we don’t want this to end with you and I back-to-back in the center of the room fighting off two streams of enemy invaders – it would make a good story, but I doubt we’d either one be around to tell it after.”

“True again.” Finn bowed, then disappeared back into the passageway, pulling the door mostly closed behind him. John immediately went to the door and listened, making sure he’d gone up the steps and continued going up them – not like there was any way to tell who had attacked who in the passageway, after all. He tore a tassel off the curtain and wedged the wooden bead it was wrapped around under the door. It wouldn’t keep the door from opening, but it would make a noise and let him know if someone was coming in. And then he pulled the concealing curtain back into place and went to sit on his throne and wait for the former councilor to show up. While trying not to think about his wife and children.

 

John had been waiting for about half an hour when the throne room doors opened and Fritjof swept in through them…and stopped dead when he saw John sitting on the throne and looking more than a little annoyed. “What took you so long, were you practicing your entrance and couldn’t get it quite right?”

The former councilor paled. “How did you…who let you out?!”

“You mean you didn’t already know I was out?” John shook his head. “You are really not very good at this.” He stood up, folding his arms across his chest. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I…you…” Fritjof grabbed the guard that was with him, tried to shove the man at John. “Take him back to the dungeon!”

“I’ve already been, thanks. It was very wet down there, luckily I had another pair of boots to change into.” John hadn’t moved. “Guard, if you would please, give your master your sword.” He drew his own sword, stepping down from the dais. “I already have mine.”

The guard visibly considered that, then drew his sword…and shoved it into Fritjof’s hands. “What…what are you doing?! He’s just a bookkeeper, take him back into our custody!”

“No mere bookkeeper holds a sword like that,” the guard informed him. “You told us the man to be overthrown was a jumped-up impostor who was only keeping the throne because the people were afraid of his fairy-cursed wife. Yet without her here he managed to have his own people and his children spirited beyond your reach, he met you at the doors with guards who’d been ordered not to offer violence because he didn’t want them dead, and he escaped from a locked cell and came back to confront you again. That’s not an impostor, that’s a king.” He bowed. “A good one, from what I’ve heard. We may be mercenaries, Your Majesty, but the most of us truly did think we were liberating a kingdom that had already been taken by someone else and was in chaos because of it. I see no chaos here, except for what we’ve caused ourselves…and for that I am honestly sorry.”

“I think I could have liked you, had we met under different circumstances,” John told him. “Things are as they are, though. If you and the men who feel as you do happen to disappear while I’m sorting out this traitor, I’m sure no one here would be able to think of a direction to search for you in – just don’t take my former guard-captain with you, I need to have words with him after I’ve done with this one.”

“I’d build you a gibbet for that one,” the man snorted. “He was wanting your huntsman’s wife for his own, and she was promised to him by this traitor,” he nudged Fritjof, “as payment for services successfully rendered.”

Fritjof quailed away from the look John gave him. “I was going to have him killed, once he’d helped me.”

“He’d have been more likely to kill you the minute you turned your back on him,” John told him. “A man willing to betray his king and steal another man’s wife isn’t likely to stop his treachery there.” He moved closer. “Now come on, defend yourself. I’m sure the nice mercenary here would like to have his sword back so he can be on his way.”

The older man seemed to consider it, holding up the sword – which was likely too heavy for him – as though he was going to try to use it, but then he dropped the point when John drew even closer. “No, this is murder! You know I’m no swordsman!”

“Then give it back to him and surrender yourself to me,” John offered. “I’ll be kinder than you were, you can go into the drier part of the dungeon.”

“You’re the one who told me about that.”

“As a test,” John lied. “One I was certain you’d fail…but it did display your lack of honor very nicely for those who’d agreed to support your treachery. So, will you surrender?”

“No!”

John sidestepped when Fritjof somewhat clumsily lunged at him, then swatted the former councilor with the flat of his blade, making him stumble and nearly fall on his face. “I’ll ask again: Will you surrender?”

“And be exiled?”

“You know the law better than that.”

“You wouldn’t kill me!”

John looked him in the eye. “You think not?”

Fritjof raised the sword again…against his own throat. “I’ll not let the worthless get of a blind bookkeeper have that honor,” he said, and slashed downward.

A great fountain of blood erupted from his neck, making both John and the mercenary jump back. John made a face. “You may not want the sword back, after that.”

The mercenary shook his head. “No, he can keep it,” he agreed. He bowed again. “Your Majesty…I wish you luck and a long reign. I’ll just go gather up a few men to get the gates open for you, shall I?”

John nodded. “Since you’ll be on your way out, of course. You might announce on your way through that the traitor Fritjof is dead.”

“Of course,” the mercenary agreed. He bowed again, then slipped through the doors and was gone.

John checked the King’s Passage and found it empty save for the dead guard, and then returned to the body of the former councilor, lying in a veritable pool of blood, dead eyes staring up at the vaulted ceiling. “I’ll never understand the greed that drove you to this end,” he said quietly. “Luckily you had no family to disgrace.”

“He had me,” a voice hissed, and pain slashed across John’s arm and down across his back even as he jumped and tried to turn to face his attacker; his sword went skittering away across the stone floor. The old cook was there, a now-bloody kitchen knife in her hand. “He had me! He only wanted what was best for Arendelle, and you killed him. Murderer!”

“He killed himself rather than surrender,” John pointed out, although he didn’t think she was in any frame of mind to listen to him. In fact, he suspected she might be completely out of her mind, if the mad look in her eyes was anything to go by. He was also cursing himself for a fool for not securing the servants’ entrance which came up from the kitchens; it had never occurred to him that Fritjof would bring his former paramour back to the castle with him, but it probably should have. He reached for his own knife and found it gone, doubtless slipped out of its sheath by one of his own guards when he’d been setting them free. Luckily, though…he reached down, keeping his eye on the cook, and pulled up the leg of his trousers to get at his boot knife. He needed to get to his sword, of course, but the knife would serve to defend himself with until he could do that. “You can surrender yourself, you know.”

“Not to you. Never to you.” She was circling, trying to find an opening, and he used dodging away from her next lunge to get himself closer to the sword. “I always hated your father.”

“And?” The query seemed to confuse her. “I mean, you can’t just toss a statement like that out without an explanation. It doesn’t signify anything unless you say _why_ you hated him. So?”

“He always held himself like he was above the rest of us,” she spat. “He wasn’t! Who cares who appointed him to the position!”

“That would have been the old king, I believe. The person who usually appoints people to important positions.”

“There’s nothing important about being a skinflint old miser!” she roared, lunging again. Faster than he’d thought she’d be, she actually managed to draw blood again with the long knife before he could get out of her way. “Cutting back the money for food, refusing us the least little luxury. And you were no better! You took our pay, made us work for our keep!”

“That would actually have been the councilors,” John pointed out, even though he was certain she knew it; many was the night he and Stefan and Jor had sat at the kitchen’s sturdy worktable, doing what work they had to by the light of the hearth fire and the kitchen’s sole lamp to keep their clothing to the councilors’ standards. More proof that she was insane if she’d forgotten that, he supposed. “You mean to tell me our former councilor _lied_ to you? He wasn’t sharing the bounty they’d all three demanded for themselves with his lover?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or did he perhaps have more than one, and you simply weren’t his favorite?”

That made her scream in rage and leap for him, and as he was still too far away from the sword he ducked to one side and thrust out with his boot knife, hoping to cut her arm and disable her somewhat, perhaps even make her drop the kitchen knife. He hadn’t counted on her slipping in her dead paramour’s blood, however, or on her fall impaling her on his knife, which tore through clothing and flesh with a horrible wet ripping sound before the force of her falling weight dragged the small blade from his grasp. She let out a blood-curdling scream and fell face down across Fritjof, her own knife burying itself in his cooling body and her face plunging into the pool of blood. She struggled, choking, then went still as the pool grew wider around them both.

John backed away, retrieved his sword. He could feel himself shaking and he forced it to stop, straightening his spine even as he felt the cold weight of his own blood soaking into his shirt and jacket – she’d done more than just scratch him, unfortunately. He listened, and then he heard it: Men’s voices yelling, boots pounding on the stone floors. He lifted his sword, ignoring the pain and the warmer rush of blood against his skin, backing away from the door enough to give himself a fighting chance if the men he heard were not his men. He knew he couldn’t run from them, even if he’d been inclined to try.

The doors were thrown open, and Finn burst in…with Per and several of Per’s own men, as well as Per’s father and other men from the town. John lowered the point of his sword – he didn’t think he could re-sheath it, honestly – and nodded. “Good job, Finn,” he said. “You’re the new guard-captain now, by the way.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Queen Elsa was enjoying being on board a ship at sea, even more than she’d thought she would. Captain Dezhnev’s crew had seemed a bit surprised at first that she’d wanted to be up on deck, watching the sea flow by or asking questions about this or that, but once they’d gotten used to the idea they hadn’t seemed to have a problem with it. “The only royalty they are used to ferrying around is my cousin, who would turn green as a piece of jade if he sat at the bow the way you do,” Dezhnev told her. “He spends all of his time on board ship holed up in his quarters wishing for death, honestly – seasickness is a curse on some men, and he is one who has it worse than many of those.”

“Poor Ivan,” Elsa commiserated. Dezhnev’s cousin, the Tzar of Rasseeyah, had made an official visit to Arendelle on the occasion of William’s christening, and she’d quite liked him. He had a reputation for being a hard man and not very friendly, but in Arendelle he’d been a polite, gracious guest and had thawed considerably whenever the baby was present. “I wish I’d known that before, I wouldn’t have kept pressing him to come visit us again.”

“He was flattered that you appreciated his company enough to want him to return,” Dezhnev assured her – which was the truth, Ivan had even joked that he should be on his best behavior more often. He had liked the young king and queen of Arendelle, however, and had said he thought they were going to do well. “Perhaps someday.” He squinted off toward the horizon, frowning. “Hmm, that storm is coming up fast, and it now seems larger than I would have thought it was going to be. You may need to return to your quarters sooner rather than later, Your Majesty.”

“Of course, Captain,” Elsa agreed at once. She peered out at the growing billow of clouds boiling over the horizon herself, shading her eyes with her hand in order to see better. “Those look black. The last time I saw clouds like that, they brought winds with them strong enough to batter down a stone tower.”

“We will hope this is not like that storm,” Dezhnev said. “In my experience, however, a storm which blows up quickly, as this one is doing, will also blow quickly back out.” He was still frowning, though. Those clouds were very black. He stood up, bowed to her. “I must set my men to readying the ship for this. You should go below deck soon, Queen Elsa.”

He hurried off, and Elsa looked back at the clouds with a frown of her own, shaking her head. They really did look like the ones she’d seen years ago in that little northern cove…

 

Two hours later the storm was upon them, and Captain Dehznev would not have hesitated to admit he was frightened. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. The winds were battering his ship and whipping the waves higher and higher, and although the skill of his crew had kept them safe so far he wasn’t sure skill would be enough soon. He could see no break in the storm, in fact it seemed to be getting stronger instead of weaker.

He threw the wheel hard aport to avoid being broadsided by another huge wave, riding up it instead. For just a moment in the lightning’s flash a watery hellscape spread out before him as far as his eyes could see, but then it was dark again and he and his first mate were fighting the wheel to turn the ship. Another of his men leaped to help them – even two men together couldn’t hold the wheel against a storm such as this – and together they managed to avoid two more waves large enough have bowled the ship over like a toy boat in a puddle. The main mast and the mizzen were creaking ominously, though, and the fore mast had already cracked and might give way at any time; the wind had torn loose one of the furled sails and was ripping it back and forth with great violence. The next wave was followed by a blast of wind that howled over the deck and the fore mast splintered and fell away, taking ropes and sailcloth with it. Two men screamed as they were swept off the deck toward certain death in the rough black water…

…And then someone else screamed, and what looked like glistening white ropes dragged the two men back on board. Dehznev couldn’t turn his head to look, but he had a feeling the loud noise he’d just barely heard over the wind’s roar had been the heavy door which led below deck being blown off its hinges. “Tie yourselves down!” he roared. He’d just seen the next oncoming wave, and it was huge. “We can’t ride this one!”

Lightning flashed, revealing the wave thundering down on them…and then there was a flash of white that split it in two and the ship rocketed through the opening. Dezhnev’s mouth fell open. He’d heard the stories, of course, but he’d never seen it for himself and had never expected to. Queen Elsa had walked out onto the lower deck, presumably so she could see better, and from her outstretched hands were pouring veritable fountains of elemental power. Another huge wave split, and then another. A man’s rope came undone when the rail it was tied to splintered away, and a chain of ice anchored him to the deck before he could be blown off the side. The main mast was making ever more ominous noises, Dezhnev was afraid the wheel was about to give way as well…and then lightning flashed again and he and his men screamed at the same time Elsa did.

The oncoming wave loomed larger than anything he’d ever imagined, an impossible mountain of water towering into sky. And there was something in it,something huge that was aimed at the ship like an arrow. A fourth man joined them at the wheel, trying desperately to turn the ship. Spars snapped, wood and metal groaned and shrieked, a tunnel of ice was forming but seemed to be battling the wind and water…and then it snapped into place and several men screamed again anyway. Dezhnev almost joined them, because the huge thing in the water was now flashing past on their starboard side, a massive beaked squid staring through the wall of ice with an eye as large as a serving platter, tentacles streaming out behind it to an impossible length. Which was when Dezhnev realized that the tunnel of ice was still being formed, because they weren’t yet through the base of the wave. How was it possible?

As it turned out, it wasn’t. Just when he was beginning to wonder if the young queen would tire before the wave ended and they’d all be drowned, the storm just…stopped. The impossible wall of water fell back into the sea. The ship rocked hard for a few moments, finding her footing again on the suddenly flat, calm waves, and Queen Elsa tentatively lowered her hands, letting the flow of ice stop; the tunnel of ice melted down into the water and vanished. She looked around, then looked back up at Dezhnev, plainly puzzled and also a bit frightened. He immediately left his men at the wheel and vaulted over the rail to get down to her. “I don’t…I felt magic, in the storm, so I came out,” she told him. “I don’t know what made it stop, though. Was that a sea monster?”

“It was a squid,” he told her. “I had never seen one so large, but I have heard tales of them. These are not the waters such things are known in, though. Magic?”

She shivered. “I think the storm started out as a real storm, and then magic…blew it up into something else. Making a path through it was the only thing I could think of.”

He shook his head. “My lady, I cannot think of a solution which would have been better. And you have my deepest thanks for saving my ship and my crew.” He looked around, frowning. The stars were out, the moon bright, and not a cloud was to be seen. “I do not understand this. It just stopped!”

“I stopped it.” The voice made him start – it had seemed to come from the very water that surrounded them – and then a figure leaped out of the water onto the deck before them, growing legs as it did so. A massive man with dark hair and a dark beard was standing there, naked, holding a wicked-looking spear in one hand, and he nodded to them. “Captain Dezhnev, that was fine sailing indeed.”

Dezhnev blinked, then went to one knee; the queen had done the same. “My Lord…thank you.”

“My Lord Sel,” Elsa said. “I felt the magic…”

“Thank goodness you did,” the Lord of the Northern Waters said, holding out a hand to lift her back to her feet and indicating with a nod that Dezhnev might rise as well. “You were right, it was a regular storm until magic twisted it into something monstrous. And I had no knowledge of it until it was almost too late.” He shook his head. “I and the other Lords of the Seven Seas had banned the fairies from interfering with our domain or our people, but even then I knew they would plot and plan to find a way around us. This, however, was not what I expected.”

Dezhnev nodded. “I myself would not have thought any living thing, not even a fairy, would disturb the Deeps,” he said. “Where the gigantic squid came from, my lady,” he explained to Elsa. “Many monstrous things are said to live in the Deeps, and the waters above them are dangerous places where most ships which venture there will not return from.”

“And the ones that do know luck alone saved them,” Sel confirmed. “The Lord of the Deeps has no love for men, or their ships. It wasn’t the fairy folk themselves who disturbed the deepest waters, though; it was a djinn, a spirit of the air they had summoned to do their bidding. He fled from my rage, but his surprise told me he did not expect it – he had not been told he was being used to challenge me, and once he tells his own lord we won’t need to worry about the djinn helping the fairy folk ever again. The Lords of the Air don’t want a war.”

Elsa’s eyes had gone wide. “That was what was fighting me, a spirit of the air? They blew up the storm to stop me from attending the summit?” Sel cocked his head, puzzled. “We received an invitation to attend a summit, a meeting of rulers to discuss matters of sea trade.”

“Tzar Ivan received the same invitation,” Dezhnev said. “I was sent in his place, as I usually am in such matters, and Queen Elsa came with me that I might also act as her advisor. Was the intent to stop us both from being present?”

Sel shook his head. “No, I doubt it. Their intent was most likely to kill the queen as a punishment for her husband – I already knew the one fairy bitch hated him, but I had thought my claim would hold her off.”

Elsa’s blue eyes had gone even wider, and Dezhnev saw frost spikes emerging from her clasped hands and a ring of frost crystals forming around her feet on the sodden deck. “Is John in danger? Are the children?”

“He may still be, but your children aren’t,” Sel assured her. “He saw the trouble coming and had them whisked away to safety before it could reach them. The one I had watching told me the man Fritjof came back as a traitor, working with other traitors and hired soldiers besides to take over the kingdom.” Surprisingly, though, he smiled; it was a sharp smile, showing sharp teeth, but there was amusement and pride in it all the same. “I’ll let him tell you the full tale of what he did, but I will tell you that he ended the threat and was still standing ready with a sword in his hand when his loyal subjects finally managed to reach him in the throne room. And the leader of the mercenaries named him the true king to the traitor’s face and offered apologies – their services had been bought under false pretenses, it seems.”

“He must have greatly impressed them, then,” Dezhnev said. “Men who fight for gold do not normally apologize for it. So should we go back, or continue on to the summit?”

“Go back,” Sel said at once. “I am not certain there is such a meeting. My watcher thinks, and I agree, that the timing of all this was far too close to be coincidence. I’ll keep the sea calm until you can patch things together enough that your ship can make it back to Arendelle.” He put a finger under Elsa’s chin. “You’ve done your ancestors proud, Queen of Arendelle,” he said, looking her in the eye. “It is not your fault the fairy bitches do what they do, understand?” She  nodded tearfully and he smiled at her, then walked to the rail and jumped. He changed in midair, legs becoming a powerful, sleek gray tail, and then he pierced the waves and was gone.

Dezhnev knew there were times when propriety was necessary, but he also knew there were times when it wasn’t; he gave the young queen a gentle hug. “He is right, other people wanting to kill you is not your fault,” he assured her. “When they try to kill my cousin it is his fault, but that is just Ivan.”

That made her laugh, as he had known it would. “ _I_ liked him.”

“A fact which is amazing even to him.” He patted her back, then moved away again. “You may stay on deck if you wish, Your Majesty, but the men and I will have no time to talk. You may have Ivor for company if you wish, however, and I am sure he would greatly appreciate it.”

She nodded. “I’ll go let him out of your cabin, but there are things I can do to help,” she said, and raised her hand. A light appeared above her palm. “See, I can make light for you to work by, to spare the lamps.”

Dezhnev smiled, and bowed. “As you wish, my lady."

 


	5. Chapter 5

Kristoff had come immediately on being informed about the situation in Arendelle, of course – Per had dispatched someone the moment Maiken had shown up terrified and in tears on his doorstep – and he was relieved to find the castle’s gates open and guards who knew him minding the comings and goings. Some men wearing Per’s colors were just riding out. “Off hunting our old guard-captain, Your Majesty,” one of the gate guards told him. “He’d thrown in with the traitor Fritjof, and he slipped away before anyone could catch him.”

“He deserves to be hunted, then,” Kristoff said. “King John?”

“In his throne room, Your Majesty, trying to sort out all the mess.”

“Thank you.” Kristoff strode into the castle – the doors of which were also wide open – nodding to a few more nervous guards on his way in, and then made his way to the throne room. There were more guards here, one of them scrubbing what he assumed was blood off the floor, and John was sitting on his throne, having apparently just dismissed another guard who was leading an agitated-looking townsman. Kristoff quickly closed the distance between himself and his brother-in-law. “John! You’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. The traitor killed himself rather than surrender, I killed his lover when she came at me to avenge him, and Per’s men are hunting down the guard-captain so we can kill him.” He offered a wan smile. “It’s just that kind of day, apparently.”

Kristoff nodded, but he was frowning. He was relatively certain John had never killed anyone before, at least not intentionally, but even that didn’t account for how pale he looked. “Where is Claude?”

“Good question…and one I may need you to help me answer,” John told him. “I saw the trouble coming and sent him off with the children, if he couldn’t make it to you he was to just take them to safety however best he could. I sent his wife to her brother so he’d know she’d be safe too. He’s just bound to be up in the mountains…do you think you can find him?”

“I can,” Kristoff said. It was telling that John didn’t want to send any of the guards, or anyone else – some traitors could still be about, apparently. “Per?”

“Helping to round up any sympathizers, and keep order in the town. We don’t need violence in the streets. I’ve already given the order, any suspected traitors are to be brought directly to the castle and they’ll be dealt with as appropriate.” He sighed. “I’m not expecting too many, but I think they’ll be safer in the cells here than they might be in the public gaol until we can sort everything out. Colder, certainly, but still safer.”

Kristoff’s eyes narrowed. “You were down there?”

John nodded. “Just for a night.”

He plainly did not want to talk about it, so Kristoff let it go. For the time being, anyway. “Do you think Elsa’s journey may have been part of this plan?”

“I’m almost certain of it.” Another smile. “I keep reminding myself that my wife is perfectly capable of seeing to her own safety, though.”

“She is, yes,” Kristoff agreed. He considered for a moment. “Claude went on foot?”

“Yes. They were already at the gates when I spotted them, he didn’t have a chance to get his horse.”

Kristoff nodded. “In that case, I’ll go after him now – I think I know where he’d have taken them, it’s a well-hidden place but it’s snug enough and not really all that far from the castle.”

John nodded, but grimaced. “I hate to ask you to go out when you’ve just arrived…but I’m worried, Kristoff. I don’t want to leave him out there thinking the kingdom has been overthrown and everyone might be dead.”

“I don’t either,” Kristoff assured him. “And he won’t come back until someone he can trust comes to get him, not when he’s got the children to guard.” He smiled. “It’s been a while since I got to go out traipsing around in the mountains. And the place I’m thinking of really isn’t all that far. If he’s there, we’ll be back in less than a day.”

“Be careful,” John cautioned. “I think all of the mercenaries Fritjof brought with him have either fled or been captured, but we can’t know if anyone else may be out there. And one of the ones we caught told me that ‘Her Ladyship’ had encouraged Fritjof to try this, and given him her support.”

Kristoff blanched. Still, though, he had protections against that sort of thing, and so long as John remained within the castle’s walls he did too. “I’ll be careful, you do the same.”

“I’ll see you out,” John said, and pushed himself out of the throne with an effort that drained even more color from his skin. “Claude went out the back way, I’ll show you. Do we need to stop at the kitchen for more provisions?” Kristoff indicated that they did, so John led him down to the kitchens. No one was about, and so they rummaged around and found foodstuffs that were suitable for packing along a mountain trail…and John stuffed in a handful of sweetmeats as well. “William likes these,” he said. “I’m sure he’s already fussing about Claude’s rabbit stew.”

Kristoff’s response to that was to wrap the smaller man in a hug…which also let him feel the thick lines of bandages under his clothing, wrapped around his chest and right arm. He had a feeling John was trying to keep quiet about that weakness, however – probably because there might still be those around wanting to take the throne – so he ignored the hiss and kept the hug gentle. “Stay inside the protections,” he warned in a near whisper. “I doubt she can get to Elsa on a ship at sea, either – you both have favor there, and I don’t think he’d like this.”

“He doesn’t,” a new voice responded quietly, and both men jumped – which made John hiss again. Ari shook his head. “You’re as stubborn as I ever was,” he said, and bowed. “Ari Torson, at your service – as much as a shade can be, that is. Give him the key and go back to your throne, John. I’ll show him the way.” The corners of his blue eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Go on, you look more like me than you should right now. Have the guards bring you some mulled wine to sip, it will help with the chill.”

“It will also make me sleepy.”

“Not if you sip,” Ari told him. “But come nightfall you’re going to have to sleep anyway, and that’s only a few hours away. Bolt the door when you go up to bed, I promise someone will be watching.”

John drew in a breath like he wanted to argue…but then he nodded. “I’ll get a mug of wine while I’m down here,” he said. “With Maiken still out of the kitchen and all of the maids still unaccounted for, no one will think anything of me serving myself.” That made the shade’s eyes narrow, and he shrugged, not quite managing not to wince. “The guard-captain was part of it…and he was Marked. And apparently someone known as ‘Her Ladyship’ was behind Fritjof’s plan.”

Ari swore. “Go carefully,” he warned. “King Kristoff, follow me as quietly as you can.”

Kristoff gave John one more careful hug and then followed the shade. This was more than he’d bargained for, but then again it was more than obvious that the dead man was an ancestor of John’s – and of course he’d seen the painting before, which was a very good likeness. They went up back stairways and through dark corridors and finally came out in a hallway he recognized as being in the royal wing. “My descendant made sure his man knew all the back ways in the castle for just such an occurrence as this,” the shade told him. “Before I show you the way the huntsman took, however, there’s something else.”

Kristoff hesitated at the door. “This is the royal bedchamber.”

“It is…and the other end of the path my descendant took to get out of the dungeons and back into the castle as well,” the shade said. “We’re also checking the room to make sure it’s empty for him, come on.”

Kristoff opened the door and went in, closing it quietly behind him. He checked everywhere a man might hide and was happy to find no one, but was less happy to find the clothes and still-sodden boots John had apparently discarded earlier. Too sodden for just a casual wetting. “What…”

“You’ll see.” The shade’s direction led Kristoff into a little sitting room with wet marks on the rug, and to a bookcase which swung open to reveal a dark stairwell. The shade went down it and Kristoff followed, and then the little key let him out at the end…outside the castle’s thick walls into an area concealed by rocks and trees. “Be careful on the stairs,” the shade’s voice warned him. “They’re quite worn at this point, I’m sure. You can swim down if you want, to see where he came up from; just come back here when you’re done and I’ll take you to the other door by the nursery.”

Apparently the shade couldn’t come out in the light, which Kristoff decided made sense. He wove around the rocks, finding a path recently disturbed by wet booted feet, and then found the worn rock stairs carved and placed with great care in the side of a small – very small – cliffside. At the bottom of them was the sea, waves slapping the rock almost playfully, and he could see the huge rocks which shielded the area from being seen by boats or ships. And the shade had mentioned swimming…Kristoff got a bad feeling. He quickly stripped off his boots and the rest of his clothing, leaving them behind a rock, then made his way down to the water and slipped in. The huge rocks towered above him like stern stone sentinels. He looked around, seeing no doors or other signs of entry in them, and then a darker patch in the water caught his eye. A cave? John had swum out…

…Of the dungeons, he had to have. Kristoff took a breath and dove, swimming down to the cave mouth and in through it. He broke water on the other side fairly quickly as the tide was low, and wasn’t much surprised to see the shade crouched up on a ledge high in the wall, putting off light for him to see by. It put a finger to its lips and pointed out an even darker hole in the rocky wall, which Kristoff swam closer to in order to look up into it. It was a sort of tunnel but probably more like a rough slide, and he had no doubt it led up to a cell in the dungeon. He looked up at the shade’s perch, seeing handholds in the rock for reaching the spot although they were higher than could have been reached with the water as low as it was now. So, a way out and a place to rest above the water. The shade was gesturing again, though, and it was pointing down. He looked down, through the clear water, and almost screamed.

The floor of the watery cave was thick with rock spikes, between which were scattered white bones; one skull, in fact, was impaled through its eye socket and hung there like a macabre bead on a pin. Kristoff swallowed, looking at the tunnel again, noting its height and angle. A man coming down with water to cushion him – a man brave enough to enter such a tunnel knowing he’d not be able to breathe until he reached the end of it, and smart enough to realize the water might be filling it for a reason – would emerge underwater and swim to the surface, then rest himself on the ledge. But a fearful man would wait until the water seemed low, until the tide went out…and his own falling weight would cause him to be scratched and torn in the rough passage before shooting him down into the shallow water, onto the spikes, to his death. He looked up again, nodded to the shade, and then dove back under the water to swim out of the cave. He shook himself once he got back to the stone steps, shaking off the water, and then redressed and went back up through the little door where the shade was waiting for him. “I will be warning him,” he told it. “He’d have taken his glasses off when he made that descent, tucked them away to protect them. There’s no way he saw that carpet of death beneath the water.”

Ari made a face. “I hadn’t thought of that – him taking off his spectacles, that is, but of course he would have. Yes, of course you should tell him. Are you dry? We don’t want to leave a wet trail behind us.”

“I left my clothing on the path,” Kristoff said. “We should hurry, so I can get back with Claude as quickly as possible.”

“Agreed.” They went back up and out through the sitting room, Kristoff carefully closing the ‘door’ up behind them and making sure its opening had left no trace. And then they left the royal chambers and went down the hall to the royal nursery. The door here was just a regular door concealed by a curtain, and it opened into another staircase which led down to yet another locked door…which opened out onto the feet of the mountains. Kristoff turned to thank his guide…and found himself alone. “Thank you,” he said anyway, and re-locked the door before tucking the precious key away safely. And then he re-settled his pack on his shoulder and plunged into the trees. He needed to be at least near the place he was seeking before the sun went down.

 

John did as his ancestor had instructed, taking his mug of mulled wine back to the throne room and staying there until it was time to go to bed. He used the King’s Passage – now cleaned of the traitorous guard’s dead body – to get back up to the royal wing, and then cautiously made his way to the chambers he usually shared with his wife. No lamps had been lit, but he’d known they wouldn’t be and so he’d brought up a small lantern to light his way. He hesitated, then went in. Nobody was there. He bolted the door – it had a bar, but he wasn’t able to lift it with one hand and to use both of them was to risk tearing out the careful stitch-work Per’s father had done on his back and arm – then made his way back to his bedchamber. The fire had gone out, so he brought in a few pieces of wood from Elsa’s chambers and then lit a taper from his lamp to light the fire with. And then he bolted that door as well, put out his lamp, and readied himself for bed by the gradually warming light of the fire. Once or twice he saw a blue flicker out of the corner of his eye, but the shade didn’t announce itself or come out where he could see it so he simply thanked whoever it was for keeping watch and then got into bed. He was asleep almost before he’d pulled up the blankets.

The shade of the mercenary who had accompanied Frijof into the throne room earlier that day smiled, shaking his head; he hadn’t wanted Arendelle’s king to know who guarded him, lest it prevent the man from getting some much-needed rest. He’d volunteered for the duty, though, as he’d felt it was the least he could do under the circumstances. “You’ve not a thing to worry about,” he told the sleeping man. “If anyone intrudes on these chambers this night, I’ll give them a scare they’ll never forget – I’ll chase them out the nearest window or down a flight of stairs, they’ll never trouble anyone again save with the mess they’ll make. And don’t you worry about your former guard-captain, either – he may have taken me by surprise, but I know my compatriots. He’ll not be coming back to this place unless it’s under a shroud.”

John slept on, undisturbed.

 


	6. Chapter 6

In the end, Elsa helped along the repairs to Captain Dezhnev’s ship with more than just light. One sail was completely gone, another torn to pieces by the wind, and although the foremast had been retrieved it wasn’t wanting to be put back in its place. Elsa fastened it down with a ring of iron-hard blue ice, spiraling thin bands of the same sealing the splintered wood back into shape, and hung it with sails of frost and ropes of snow. The main mast was reinforced the same way, and a previously undiscovered hole in the hull was encased in a bubble of ice from the outside until Dezhnev’s men could pump out the excess seawater and patch it. She provided fresh water for the men to drink while they worked, and went down to the galley and cobbled together a stew so that a pair of able seaman’s hands might join in the work on deck.

When one of the men had put forth some objection to the idea of a queen doing such work, she’d actually stamped her foot at him and threatened to make him eat last. “The king and queen of Arendelle are not pampered royal children,” Dezhnev told his shocked men when she whisked back down into the galley. “Treachery drove them from their home to far-off Valeureux, and from there necessity drove them across the countryside and back –  with only her elder brother, the king of Valeureux, to accompany them. This queen is well used to doing her share of the work when it is necessary.”

The men accepted that, and for the most part were even pleased by it. The women of Rasseeyah were also inclined to work beside their men, but their tsarina was known to be not much more than a pretty ornament and it had understandably colored their perceptions. Dezhnev did not dislike his cousin’s sweet young wife, but she had a naivete about her that worried him sometimes. Ivan’s enemies were many, and not all of them were fools.

By midday the ship was back in sailing order, the men had been well-fed, and they were underway again – this time back in the direction from whence they’d come. Dezhnev portioned out his men as best he could, keeping those who were most resilient – mostly the older ones – on deck and sending the rest below to sleep until their turn on deck came again. Queen Elsa had also gone to sleep, but on the now snow-cushioned bench on the foredeck rather than in her cabin below it; she was concerned, she said, that something else might happen, and wished to be on hand if it did. Dezhnev had agreed to that, as he was worried himself. The sea had stayed flat as glass while they had been doing what they could to repair the ship, just as Lord Sel had promised…but there had been no promise for a safe journey home, or even an assurance that they would not be attacked again. So he kept watch from the wheel, and stationed men at the rail to keep their eyes on the sky and the water.

Even still, he himself was the first to spot their next visitor, who came in a wind that rounded the sails and left standing beside the main mast a mountain of a man with dark skin and black pools for eyes and a dark beard trimmed and oiled to sharp points rather than full. He had on loose pants of sheer gold-embroidered silk and rings of gold in his ears, but other than that had no other clothing nor ornament save for the thick, dull manacles around his wrists which were somewhat obviously not there for decoration. He bestowed a look both sullen and contemptuous on Dezhnev and did not quite bow but also did not quite not. “THE LORDS OF THE AIR SEND ME,” he boomed. “MORTAL CAPTAIN…”

“Who _are_ you?” Elsa demanded, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “And why are you so _loud_?” Then she saw him and rose to her feet, and from his spot at the wheel Dezhnev saw the ring of frost once again form on the deck as her dainty hand rose to point at the massive djinn. “Oh! Are you here to cause more trouble?”

The djinn turned around, saw her…then saw the ring of frost which was spreading toward him and squeaked in a most unmanly fashion, immediately prostrating himself on the deck. “FORGIVE…forgive me, Your Majesty, She Who Holds the Key to the World’s End. This unworthy one forgot himself. It shall not happen again.”

Dezhnev was not sure whether to be amused by this or even more alarmed, but he decided amusement would serve them best and strolled around the wheel to make his way to the foredeck. “He’s one of the Djinn, Your Majesty,” he explained. “The people of the Lords of the Air.” The djinn gave him a black look, and he rolled his eyes. “Well how was she supposed to know that? You did not introduce yourself, and Arendelle does not trade with the peoples under your lords’ aegis except through us.”

One sharp black eyebrow went up, then went down again. “Very true, I did not think of that.” He stood back up when Elsa indicated that he should, and bowed a proper bow this time. “I was sent by my king, the Lord of the Desert Wind,” he explained. “For my transgression, although it was committed in ignorance, I have been ordered to serve you until this vessel has safely returned to port.”

Elsa cocked her head. “I’m going to guess you aren’t supposed to fix the ship, or you’d have already done it.” The djinn looked somewhat embarrassed. “So what _are_ you supposed to do?”

The djinn looked to Dezhnev again, and the sea captain chuckled, shaking his head. “She just does not think that way – neither does her husband, Arendelle’s king. She lent her power to help us with what repairs we could not accomplish by regular means, and then she cooked for my men while their work continued.”

Understanding dawned. “Ah, I see it now. That is a task I may take from you, Your Majesty, should you wish it,” the djinn offered. “I may also do the work of a sailor at your command, Captain, mending nets or sails, or even cleaning the deck.” Another bow. “What task shall I accomplish first?”

“I don’t think we’ll need to cook again for a while,” Elsa told him. “I made a big pot of stew, and they ate all of it. And the sails that are left have already been mended.” She considered. “Would you mind sitting here and talking with me until there’s something else you can do? I know nothing at all about your lord’s people, or your country, maybe you could tell me about them. I think it must be very hot there, going by the way you dress.”

Dezhnev hurriedly jumped back into the conversation, telling himself that he would carry to the end of his days the memory of needing to come to the aid of a mortified djinn. “Your Majesty, he is dressed this way because he is being punished. Until his atonement is complete…his master has placed him in the position of a slave, and his manner of dress reflects that.”

He’d known she wouldn’t take that well, and she didn’t. Her hand flew to her mouth, and small, sharp shards of ice erupted near her feet. “But…but that’s horrible! Even Lord Sel said he hadn’t known he shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing!”

The captain nodded. “The laws of their people can be harsh, Queen Elsa.”

“I see.” Her blue eyes narrowed in thought, and then her chin lifted and she fixed the djinn with a surprisingly commanding gaze. “What name should I call you by?”

The djinn bowed very low. “I am called Nasim, Your Majesty.”

She nodded. “And you have to do what I say?” He nodded. “Good. Dress yourself in the sort of clothes a man of your people would wear, I want to see them.”

Nasim’s eyes widened with renewed surprise, but he bowed again. “Your wish is my command,” he assented, and when he straightened he was wearing  flowing pants of similar style but a thicker silk, a fine shirt of the same, a richly embroidered belt and a matching long vest. On his head was an intricately wrapped turban of white silk, and on his feet were shoes of stiff embroidered silk curiously curled into points at the toes; the manacles, however, remained around his wrists. “This is how a man of higher caste would dress himself to enter the presence of a queen.”

She took that in with a nod, then indicated the bench; the snow cushion dissolved into dry flakes and blew away. “You may sit there to tell me of your people. As I don’t believe it would be well for you to sit on snow, you may create a cushion such as you would use at home.”

A fat, tasseled cushion of a beautiful blue color appeared on the bench, and then before it a small table on which sat a lacquered tray containing a steaming pot and a small cup, as well as a plate of pastries glistening with honey. The djinn indicated that Elsa should be seated, then poured out a cup of fragrant, steaming tea and handed it to her with a bow which was now entirely respectful before taking a seat opposite at her gesture. “I come from a land of golden sand and hot sun, Your Majesty, where the winds are all-powerful and even the trees bow at their coming…”

Dezhnev went back up to the wheel, shaking his head – and trying hard not to laugh. They would make it back to the port of Arendelle in safety now, he was sure of it. And Ivan was going to love this story.


	7. Chapter 7

Kristoff had, just as he’d told John, found the spot Claude had taken the children to with ease — it was a spot he’d used himself on occasion, a cave big enough to hold his sledge and Sven but with its mouth shielded enough by trees to protect it from the wind. In the old days he would have approached it from the side, wanting to see whatever or whoever else might be inside before it saw him, but this time he came in straight, knowing that Claude would hear him, and stopped beside a thick-trunked tree whose branches were actually high enough off the ground for him to stand under without stooping. “Claude!” he called out, just loudly enough to carry. “It’s me, Kristoff! John sent me to find you.”

A small glint let him know that the arrow pointing in his direction had been lowered to point at the ground. “King Kristoff?”

“Per sent for me the moment he realized what was going on,” Kristoff said. “But by the time I arrived, John and the Royal Guard had already settled the matter.” He stepped out so that the moonlight would better illuminate him. “It was that cringing snake Fritjof, and the guard-captain in it with him. Per has his men hunting that one down now, apparently he’s to be executed as soon as they catch him.”

Claude also stepped out of cover. “And the snake?”

“Killed himself, and then John killed the lover he’d brought back with him. Maiken is still with her brother, I think John won’t let her return until he’s sure it’s safe.”

The huntsman found a smile. “She’ll be in a tear over the state of her kitchen when she comes back, then. Come up and share the fire, Your Majesty. The children are asleep, and I’ve information of my own to add to this tale of treachery.”

Kristoff came up. Claude’s hunting hound — a gift from Captain Dezhnev — was alert in his spot beside the fire but laid his head back down with a huff when he recognized the new arrival. “Good to see you too, Misha,” Kristoff told him, divesting himself of his pack and settling into a spot near the small fire. Normally the hound would have come to greet him, but at the moment he was being used as a pillow by Prince William. “I brought more food,” he told Claude. “And John stuffed in a handful of sweetmeats for William.”

Claude, to his surprise, looked rather grim about that. “Where did he get them?”

“The kitchen.” The larger man raised an eyebrow. “Where shouldn’t he have gotten them from?”

“The nursery, I’m afraid.” Claude settled back into his own place, moving a small kettle closer to the flames to heat. “When I went to get the children, I was supposed to tell their nurse that the king wanted to speak to her…but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere in the nursery, in fact, and the prince and princess were sleeping so deeply that I just knew they’d been drugged. They didn’t wake up until we were nearly here, and once they did they were fretful the way a child only is when it feels sick. Did King John mention the nurse? I’m sure he would have wondered why she didn’t come to him as ordered.”

Kristoff slowly shook his head. “He said the maids were all still missing, doubtless he thinks she’s with them.” He took a stone talisman out from under his clothing, pulling the cord over his head and then touching the carved stone to the cave wall.

Within seconds there was a grinding noise and then a rock troll detached itself from the raw stone and bowed. “King Kristoff. Huntsman.”

“You already knew we had a problem in Arendelle, Brock, but it’s a bigger one that we thought,” Kristoff said without preamble. “The children’s nurse may have been part of this treachery, and Claude has reason to believe she might have drugged them. I know John thinks she’s with the rest of the missing servants, but she’d apparently left the nursery before the alarm was given.”

“I will bring someone,” the troll called Brock said at once, and then he sniffed. “King John’s watching ancestor revealed himself, did he?”

Kristoff wasn’t surprised. “He showed me how John escaped from the dungeons, and then he showed me the way Claude took to get out of the castle – after he had me check the royal chambers to make sure no one was hiding there.” He snorted. “Which is something you’ll need to make sure I don’t forget to tell John, Claude. That escape route is a deadly trap for cowards and fools; the bones of the last few who failed its test are still there. But I know he would have taken his glasses off when he made the descent, so I’m quite sure he didn’t see them to recognize the warning they represent.”

Brock nodded again. “We built that slide,” he said. “Rough-carved, water-softened. The cave with its teeth was already there, though, and the pocket in the wall we simply enlarged to fit a resting man. Although the last brave one to use the slide was a princess fleeing a bad match – quite the tale, that was. I’ll be back.”

The troll disappeared into the rock again, and Claude dropped his head into his hands. “Dammit. If I’d been there…”

“You’d most likely have been killed,” Kristoff told him. “And the children taken as hostages to force John to do the traitor Fritjof’s bidding – and probably with the thought that their continued safety would guarantee Elsa’s compliance as well on her return.” He snorted. “I’d have quite liked to see the look of surprise frozen on the traitor’s face when that plan didn’t work at all.”

“We could have had him as a statue in the courtyard, or perhaps in front of the gates,” Claude agreed. “He’d have been an ugly one, though. So the king is unharmed?”

“I wish I could say he was, but no,” Kristoff said. “There are bandages wrapped around his chest and one arm, concealed by his clothing. He’s trying hard not to show his weakness, I know he fears there are still traitors about who might seek to take advantage of it if they knew. I doubt he’s fooling anyone completely – his ancestor accused him of looking more like a shade than he ought to, which he does – but we can hope the act is at least making them think twice about trying anything.”

Claude sighed. “We can hope,” he agreed. “Is it known who was helping Fritjof yet? Such a plan had to be larger than one coward with a bag of ill-gotten gold could have managed by himself.”

“Oh, it was.” Kristoff shook his head. “John was having all of those suspected of being part of the treachery brought to him at the castle…but one of the mercenaries they captured told John ‘Her Ladyship’ was behind this. Which only makes sense, as it would take a great deal of magic to have concealed the guard-captain’s treachery. He was Marked.”

“So we’ve no longer the assurance of that loyalty either.” Claude poked at the fire with a stick. “I could have sworn the children’s nurse was from one of the old families as well. Word will need to be sent to Valeureux, King Adam also trusts in that magic.”

“Yet another thing to be attended to as soon as we get back,” Kristoff agreed. “If John hasn’t already, of course.”

 

Brock came back shortly thereafter, bringing three more trolls; two of them had spears, and they stationed themselves at the cave’s mouth, blending into the rock so seamlessly that that they could not be seen at all. The third made a beeline for the sleeping royal children, which had Mischa back on the alert until a word from Claude settled him again. Brock was looking positively grim. “King John sleeps in safety,” he said. “He is well-guarded. And I sent Pebble to help Arendelle’s new guard-captain find the missing servants. It is known they must still be in the castle, but no sign of them has yet been found.”

“Pebble is good at finding things,” Kristoff agreed. “You look like you have other news which is not so good, Brock.”

“I do,” the troll said. “Two more of the Marked now reside in the castle’s dungeons for treachery. This could not have been done by a single angry fairy, Your Majesty; it would take many of them, perhaps even all of them working together, to subvert the power of King Sel in this manner. This is no longer about them seeking revenge against one man, one family or one kingdom. This must be a move by the fairies to break the power of all those who might thwart them.”

Kristoff’s eyes widened. “The Lords of the Sea.”

Brock nodded. “And the other lords as well. All those who came together in agreement to censure them for their wickedness.”

“Our people as well?” The troll nodded again. “Is there anything that can be done?”

“We will warn all those we can. By dawn the stones will be singing of it across all the world. Be warned, however: Once these capricious Daughters of Circe have heard that song, a very dangerous time will be upon us all. The most desperate of creatures is the one pressed into a corner.”

“Very true, it is,” Claude agreed. “What should we do now?”

“Eat, then sleep,” the troll said. “We will keep watch, and guard your return journey tomorrow.” He made a face. “Had we known this was more than just a coup staged by greedy mortals, we would have accompanied King Kristoff to Arendelle and come to find you ourselves, Huntsman. We will be more careful in the future.”

“There’s no way any of us could have known what was behind this, Brock,” Kristoff said. “I don’t believe even Lord Sel would have anticipated something like this.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Brock shrugged. “It matters little now – now is for dealing with what we know. Which is that we must proceed with more care than we have been of late, as our enemies have power they do not fear to abuse.” He placed a hand on the rock, as someone might push open a door. “I will return to the valley now, to see that our defenses have no gaps which might be exploited, but I will return in the morning.”

“Be careful, Brock,” Kristoff cautioned, and the troll nodded once, sharply, before vanishing into the rock again. The King of the Rock Trolls sighed. “I hope this is not a sign that war is coming upon us.”

“War may have already been upon us, Your Majesty, or at least the beginnings of one,” Claude told him, shaking his head. “We simply didn’t see it for what it was.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

John was up quite early the following morning, mostly out of habit but more than a little due to worry having awakened him. He got dressed, opting for a somewhat thicker coat than the season required as he was feeling a bit chilled, and secreted two small knives about his person in addition to the ones sheathed in his boots just in case any more trouble decided to come at him. He’d managed to get his sword belt on, but it was only for show; there was no way he’d be able to draw the blade and he knew it. Very few other people were in possession of that fact, however, so the threat the sword represented – empty though it might be – would probably be enough to discourage most who might think to attack him.

He took the King’s Passage down to the throne room, seeing no one along the way, and the throne room itself was empty as well. Which was as it should be, so John even more cautiously used the servants’ entrance which led to the kitchens in search of breakfast. Nobody was there either, so he poked up the hearth fire and put a kettle on the hob to boil. Two cups of tea later he was feeling much more alert, and the food he’d foraged for in the pantry had put some much-needed starch back into his legs, so he felt ready to face whatever the day might be preparing to throw at him. He took a third cup of tea back up to the throne room and then went out to check on the royal guards. Two of them were in their usual places by the main doors, and his appearance in the hall startled them so much that one dropped his spear. John had to smile. “Quiet morning?” he asked.

“Very, Your Majesty,” the guard not fumbling to recover his spear confirmed with a bow. “Lord Nilsson’s men returned just after dawn with the old guard-captain’s body, but Captain Eydisson said there was no point to waking you as the body wasn’t going to be doing anything of interest.”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.” John hoped it wasn’t, anyway; he’d seen stranger things, but he didn’t like to say so when the guards were still so much on edge. “Who’s on the gate?”

The guard who had dropped his spear bowed. “Fannar and Alv, Your Majesty. And Captain Eydisson has two more of us on the wall with bows, but he’s had them changing out every two hours so I’m not sure who it is up there now.”

“That’s fine. Any other news I should know before I go back to the throne room?”

“There’s at least one Rock Troll about,” the first guard told him. “It showed up last night to help search for the missing servants.”

“King Kristoff must have sent it,” John said, taking a sip of his tea. “I’ll remember to thank him for that later. Since we’re running short on manpower, if anyone comes just send them directly in to me, and if anything else happens ring the bell and I’ll come out to you.” They hesitated. “One man on the doors is not an option, not today, possibly not for many days to come,” he told them sternly. “And the day I’m too full of myself to get up off my throne without an invitation and a royal escort is the day I don’t deserve to sit on it any longer. Do you understand?”

They both nodded and bowed. “We’ll ring the bell, Your Majesty,” the first guard said. “Two peals together if it’s something you need to come out for, one only if someone is coming in to see you. Will that be acceptable?”

“Yes, that will work – and ring it three times when it’s time for you to change out. Carry on.”

They both bowed again, and John took his tea back to the throne room. It was early yet, but he knew it wouldn’t be that much longer before people started queuing up to request – or in some cases demand – an audience. He smiled to himself. The guards had standing orders to make the demanding ones wait in the entry hall until no less than three more polite visitors or one solid hour had passed, a fact which was well-known in the town but which hadn’t discouraged some of her more self-important citizens. Until John had instructed the servants to take the cushions off the benches, that was…

Movement caught his eye, albeit a very small movement, and he had barely settled back onto his throne when a tiny brown bird with a blue breast swooped down from the high rafters to perch on the back of Elsa’s throne, from where it proceeded to cheep and shake its feathers at him as though it were making a complaint. John couldn’t help but smile; it wasn’t unusual for birds to get in when they’d had the castle’s front doors open for any length of time, although most of them weren’t so forward as this one was being. “If you’re looking for crumbs, I’m afraid you’ll have to fend for yourself until Maiken comes back,” he told it. “And Elsa isn’t here to shift you safely back outside.”

The response to this was an even more agitated bout of cheeping, but when John’s only response was to shake his head and take another sip of his tea, the bird let out an ugly, angry squawk. He raised an eyebrow. “I can have you put in the dungeon for that – or worse, in a pretty cage in the nursery.”

Another bout of complaining and then the bird took off again, circling the thrones and making as though it were going to go back up into the rafters before turning in midair and diving straight toward him. Caught by surprise, and lacking any other immediate way to ward the tiny creature off, John threw his tea at it. The cascade of warm liquid caused the bird to falter in its dive and turn aside, catching itself on the arm of a lamp bracket and shaking tea off its feathers. The noises it was making were quite terrible now, as was the look it was giving him with its black button eyes, and John very quickly went from amused to alarmed. He stood up, slowly, noting the way those eyes followed his every move. Something was very wrong…

A familiar voice coming from the shadows startled him. “John, back away slowly,” it hissed. “And whatever you do, don’t let it scratch you.”

John did as he was instructed. “Poison?”

“If not something worse.”

“Well that’s just lovely.” And it also meant he couldn’t ring the bell for the guards. Spears and swords wouldn’t do them any good against a tiny flying assailant – assuming they didn’t just think their king had lost his mind and ignore the bird altogether, of course. He thought quickly. The bird was still watching him, and still shaking out its tea-sodden feathers, but he had a feeling it was going to take to the air and come at him again any time now so he didn’t dare take his eyes off of it. “Is it actually a bird, Ari?”

“I don’t think so, no.” The bird left its perch and started circling again, making more awful noises. “Dammit! How did it get past the protections?!”

“How did ‘Her Ladyship’ corrupt some of the Marked without anyone being able to tell the difference?” was John’s response. “There are three of them down in the dungeons now, and none of the rest of us can hear anything amiss no matter what treason they spout. Nothing has happened to Lord Sel, has it?”

“No – trust me, if anything had, everyone on the northern waters would have known it.” The bird dove, but John threw his now-empty cup and it was forced to swoop and duck, circling away again. “It’s coming back.”

“I see it.” From the side this time, and aiming lower; John had a feeling it was hoping to scratch the back of one of his hands. He drew his hand up into his coat sleeve as much as he could and struck out with his arm, and then again. The bird swooped and ducked, and now the noise it was making suggested it was laughing at him. “I think it’s trying to wear me down.”

“Or make you tear that stitching and bleed yourself weaker, yes,” Ari agreed. “I’d suggest you try to catch it in the curtains, but it would be just as likely to catch you there.”

“Yes, probably.” John considered pulling out one of his knives, but decided that would make his hand more of a target, not less. He needed something larger to fend it off with, something with some weight to it…with a quick lunge that made the stitching on his back scream he dove for Elsa’s throne and snatched the cushion up off of it, then swung it with all his might. The wind this created buffeted the bird back, tumbling it over in the air. It squawked in pure rage and dove at him screeching, and this time he swung down, the force dashing the bird onto the flagstones. His back and arm were burning, but John ignored that, raising the cushion for another swing. His eyes were on the bird, but in his mind all he could see was a strange serving girl bearing a steaming goblet whose noxious vapors formed the shape of a skull as they rose into the air. Ridiculous as it might seem, considering the size and shape of his opponent, this fight was for nothing less than his life and he knew it.

Before the bird could right itself and come at him again, however, the stone rippled and shot upward to form a rough cage around it. A scowling rock troll melted up through the stones beside the cage. “Gotcha,” it spat at the screeching bird, and then offered John a bow. “King John. I am Pebble. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you I was watching, I didn’t want her to hear me.”

“That’s all right,” John assured him, willing his heartbeat to slow to a more reasonable pace. “I appreciate your help, Pebble. Her?”

“Your children’s nurse, Your Majesty.” The cushion fell from John’s hands. “She did them no permanent harm, merely drugged them to sleep that they might not cause trouble for their captors. King Kristoff called for our aid the moment he learned of this, and I was sent to help your guard-captain find her and locate the missing servants.”

John made his way back to his throne and sank onto it. His hands were shaking. “My guess is you haven’t found them yet.”

“No, but I will keep looking.” The troll essayed a proud smile. “I am best at finding things, but it is a _very_ large castle.”

“It is,” John agreed. “Ari, would you be able to help Pebble search?”

“No, because I’m guarding you,” was the shade’s response. Ari stalked out of the shadows to glare down at the caged bird. “If I was a living man, I would pluck you and eat you,” he told it, rolling his eyes when it screeched at him. “I’m supposing you were such a fool you actually believed she’d reward you once your task was done – or that she’d bother to turn you back if you failed.” He bowed to the rock troll, who bowed back. “The threat is larger than we thought, isn’t it.”

Pebble nodded. “So the Elders say, and there’s no reason to doubt them. Word was sent out before the sun rose; we made the stones sing with our warning the world ‘round so all the Lords would know that the Daughters of Circe had banded together to break their power.” He nodded to John. “The breaking of the Marks was their first venture, as King Sel was the one who first exercised his power against them.”

John swallowed. “Is he in danger? Are _you_ in danger?”

The troll beamed and bowed so low his forehead almost touched the floor. “Eventually, perhaps, but far less than you are, King of Arendelle. My people are on their guard now, and two accompany King Kristoff and your huntsman and the children to guarantee their safe return home.”

“Your people have all my gratitude for that, Pebble,” John told him, and a faint golden light spread itself out across the stones. “If there is ever any way within my power that I may help you, all you have to do is ask.”

“I will relay that message, Your Majesty,” Pebble said. He pulled the rough stone cage up, and it stretched into a finer-looking cage on a tall stand. “There, that’s more fitting for a throne room. Unless you want to buy some freedom by telling me where they are?” he asked the bird, which made it beat at the bars with its wings and try to reach him with its claws. “A small cage is your fate, then. I’ll be back,” he told John and Ari. “I can move the bird wherever you wish it to go then.”

John nodded, and the troll vanished back into the floor. He turned his attention back to the shade of his ancestor. “You hid before so she wouldn’t see you and report to her mistress, am I right?”

“Yes,” Ari admitted. “The Lords of the Sea – all of the Lords, honestly – are not supposed to meddle overmuch in the lives of mortals. Lord Sel gave me the choice to remain here, to be his eyes and ears if not his hands, but there is little more he can do than what he has already done. On the land, at least. At sea it’s a different story.”

“I can’t imagine they’d try him in his own domain, no.” John sighed. “Dammit. As soon as we’re on a more stable footing here, word will have to be sent to Valeureux. Adam will need to know about the breaking of the Marks, and that _none_ of the fairies can be trusted.” Ari raised an eyebrow. “The one who wears blue favors him, and he feels a great deal of gratitude toward her for her help in breaking the curse on both his kingdom and his wife.”

The shade nodded slowly. “I know the one you speak of,” he said. “She may favor him, but she hates you.”

“I know, but I have no idea why.” John shrugged. “I’ve never so much as spoken to her. But the first time we encountered her she immediately threatened me with being turned into a cricket if I opened my mouth, and when she appeared in Valeureux before the wedding she nodded to me out of politeness but didn’t otherwise acknowledge me at all.”

Ari frowned. He well remembered the fairy in blue saying his descendant ‘didn’t know his place’ while she was being chastised by Lord Sel, and he’d just assumed she’d had some sort of confrontation with him. But if her animosity hadn’t been ‘earned’, so to speak, then where had it come from? The answer supplied itself to him almost immediately. “Plans,” he nearly spat, surprising John. “Something Lord Sel said about them, that the fairies were always playing with mortals, tugging at the strings of their lives, dressing them like dolls. That must be it.” Disgust was visible on his face, and more than a little anger. Not just because this man was of his line, and a credit to it, but because he’d been a good man on his own before that and the bitch of a fairy had actually held it against him. “We already knew that part of her desire to kill you is as a means to an end,” he explained to John. “She seeks to impose punishment on your wife in a less direct manner, attempting to skirt the edges of her promise that no blame would fall for the defeat of her wicked wand-sister. But the rest…I have to think she hated you for acting, John. For acting without having your strings pulled by one of her kind, for being a man who would seek to save a cursed princess without the aid and approval of the ones who twist curses to further their plans and pleasure.”

John’s jaw set. “So she hates me for saving Elsa.”

“Yes, but not just that. The Daughters of Circe, as their mother before them, see men at best as tools and at worst as playthings. The bitch must have noticed that the princess was falling in love with you…and she didn’t like it, because you’d earned that love all unknowing instead of being chosen to receive it by one of her kind.”

“Fairies must be stupid, then,” John said, which drew a screech of protest from the imprisoned bird. “At that time, Elsa didn’t even know what love between a man and a woman truly meant. She didn’t know _anything_ , Ari. Even after we had to have Adam’s cook and his butler’s wife explain…certain things to her, she still thought the former Chief Councilor telling her they needed her to ‘do her duty’ with Prince Hans had just meant she needed to hold her powers in for the duration of the marriage ceremony.”

Ari’s mouth dropped open. “No one had…what the hell were they thinking?!”

“That they could legally execute her for killing Prince Hans in the marriage bed,” John said. “Tarben didn’t deny that had been his plan when I confronted him with it.” He snorted. “I’m rather meanly glad he went insane; him dying by my sword would have been too quick.”

“If he was making plans like that, I agree with you.”

Outside, the bell rang once. “Someone’s coming in,” John said. “You should remain hidden, I know we still haven’t flushed out all the traitors.”

“You’re not wrong,” the shade told him, melting back into the shadows again. “I won’t reveal my presence unless I have to.”

“Hopefully you won’t have to,” was John’s response, and then he straightened up a bit more as one of the chamber’s heavy doors began to open. “We’ve got a bit of a mess in here!” he called out. “And mind the cage in the center of the floor, the creature in it is quite deadly.”

That brought the visitor directly into the room. “Your Majesty?!”

John smiled. “Good morning, Finn. Pebble is still searching for the others, but he did catch the children’s nurse.” The bird let out an ugly squawk. “The cage isn’t much to her liking, I’m afraid.”

Finn stepped around the mess of tea and broken crockery, his eyes widening when the bird pressed against the bars and swatted at him with faintly green-glowing claws as he moved past the stone cage. “You weren’t harmed?”

“Only by the loss of my tea,” John told him. “I’ll go get some more shortly, but I didn’t want to leave the cage unattended and risk having her poison some innocent person with those wicked little claws.”

“I see them,” Finn said. He wasn’t touching the part about the tea; he had it on good authority that their cook was going to be back sooner rather than later, albeit with guards from Lord Nilsson’s to guarantee her safety, so he’d let her handle barring the king from serving himself. “Pebble told me last night that the nurse had been revealed as a traitor, but I still had hope she was hiding with the other servants to better pretend her innocence. I should have had someone standing guard in here…”

“We haven’t enough men for that,” John contradicted him. “And I don’t want to start splitting them up, for safety’s sake. That was why I told the two on the doors to ring the bell if something happened instead of sending someone in to get me.”

The guards had already related that conversation to Finn, of course. He couldn’t disagree with the logic behind the order, but he still didn’t like it. Mainly because he was one of the very few people who knew that King John wasn’t exactly able to defend himself at present. And with that in mind, he broached his argument very carefully. “We will need to have someone here in the throne room once people start to come in to request an audience,” he pointed out. “I’d choose Stuart for that, Your Majesty. He’s still unhappy about not being able to protect you from the traitor Fritjof’s men; setting him to be your personal guard today would fix that.”

John chuckled. “Of course it would. Do you want to tell him I can’t draw this sword, or should I?”

“I’ll let him know, Your Majesty.” Finn let his own smile leak out. His king could be a stubborn man, but he wasn’t an unreasonable one. “Should we let the first audience-seeker know they’ll have to earn the privilege of being heard by mopping up the floor in here?”

“I’d consider it if I thought any of them knew how,” John told him. “But I’m fairly certain they’d just make a bigger mess.”

Finn couldn’t disagree with that either, because he knew it to be true. He resolved to go down to the kitchen himself directly as he was finished speaking to his king to fetch rags. And more tea, while he was at it. The bell from the entry rang, once, and he frowned. “With your permission, Your Majesty, I’ll just go tell them they have to wait until called for.”

“Yes, I know we have things to discuss,” John agreed. Finn went back out and then returned with Per Nilsson in tow. “Good morning, Per. I heard that our traitorous former guard captain was brought back last night in no state to cause any more trouble.”

Per nodded. “My men found him dead,” he confirmed. “They said it appeared the mercenaries who escaped had killed him. And from the looks of the corpse, they were…more than a little angry with him about something, he’s as perforated as a sieve.”

“He may not have realized they wouldn’t welcome him,” John said. “Their leader told me he’d happily have built a gibbet for Gunder with his own hands; they apparently did not think much of his wanting Maiken as the ‘prize’ for his treachery.” Surprisingly, that drew another squawk of protest from the caged bird, and his eyebrows rose. “Oh, did he promise you differently, Ragna? Were you thinking you’d be lady to his lord?” A smug cheep, and the bird preened. “You must have misunderstood him; I had it from Fritjof himself that the prize he’d demanded was Maiken. Although I suppose he may have been planning to keep you on in your old position and use you as a mistress.”

That sent the bird into a frenzy, and Finn just managed to not roll his eyes. “What shall we do with Gunder’s body, Your Majesty? Burn it with the others?” He seemed surprised when John shook his head. “No?”

“No,” John said. “He was a traitor to the kingdom and to his line, and to everything that makes a man worthy of respect. Is he intact enough to hang?” Finn nodded. “Then hang him with the others – in fact, have him strung up first, so the three who can walk to their execution will know what company they’re keeping. I know it sounds needlessly vindictive,” he added. “But we have to send a message, and it needs to be something would-be traitors won’t be able to help but remember.”

Per nodded slowly. “You’re right, of course. And it’s not like his family would want him in their crypt – or at least, I hope they wouldn’t.”

“I hope so too. But if they do, send them to me and I’ll deal with it.” John gestured at the bird. “This is the traitor I’m really not sure what to do about. She plotted to aid Fritjof and Gunder, not to mention betraying mine and Elsa’s trust, but she didn’t actually harm the children. And she’s imprisoned in more ways than one, as I doubt the magic that changed her will be employed to change her back now that she’s failed in her task.”

“We can always wait to decide her fate, Your Majesty,” Finn suggested. “I was going to search both her rooms and the nursery this morning, so more information about her loyalties may yet be brought forward.”

“True. All right, then, we’ll worry about Ragna later. How does the town seem this morning, Per?”

“Quiet,” Per told him. “It’s still early, though. Yesterday people were giving even their neighbors sideways looks, but today we’ve got two ships due in so most are consumed with the work they need to be doing. Speaking of which, I have someone who’s not on the watch keeping an eye on the docks. We’ve no way of knowing if the traitor Fritjof had allies coming or not.”

What he wasn’t saying – and didn’t have to – was that they also had no idea if the watch were still loyal. “Good thinking,” John approved. “You haven’t had any problems?”

Per shrugged. “None I didn’t have before. Although I have put a guard on Mother, which she doesn’t much like.”

“And Maiken?”

“Wants to return home, Your Majesty – she tried to come with me this morning, as a matter of fact. Her brother said he’d allow it as long as you approved and he could send a man to guard her.”

John considered it. He himself would have made Maiken stay away until Claude was back, but if her brother – Per’s own guard-captain – thought she should return…well, then being kept away was probably upsetting her too much. “Can you spare someone for that?”

“Yes,” Per answered at once. “And Liev has already told her that she’s not to leave her guard’s sight, which she agreed to.”

“Then yes, she can come back,” Jon agreed. “But if even a single incident happens in the kitchens, she has to go right back to your house and stay there until Claude comes to get her.”

“Agreed. Shall I go get her now?” He made a face at the wet floor. “And perhaps someone else who can use a mop?”

John smiled. “Just Maiken, for now. And yes, go ahead – I’m sure she’s waiting at the door for you.” Per bowed and made fast tracks back out of the room, and John turned his attention back to Finn. “In the interest of having more men rested and ready if we need them, I think the archers on the walls should be called down until nightfall,” he said. “Especially seeing as its sunny today and that makes the men too easy as targets. If you think someone should be watching from a higher vantage point, have one of them do it with a glass from the parapet where the flag is at.”

“True, no arrow or bullet could reach a man that high up,” Finn agreed. “And they’d be able to see the harbor from there as well.”

“I am truly hoping there will be nothing out of the ordinary for them to see there.” John sighed. “Tell them to be wary of birds, though – we don’t know if Ragna was the only one making bad bargains with fairies. In fact, I’d suggest sending up a net, just in case.”

“I’m truly hoping there’s no need of that either, Your Majesty – but I’ll have them take one and keep it there.” The bell rang again, and he rolled his eyes. “I know that one’s not Lord Nilsson, or anyone else with news that can’t wait. With your permission, I’ll tell them they have to wait until Stuart comes out to get them. And I’ll have him bring a mop; we’ll have it all over the town that the castle is a slovenly wreck if one of the troublesome ones sees it like this, and then we’ll have Maiken screaming at shopkeepers every time she goes to market.”

That made John laugh. “True, the townspeople have probably been traumatized enough without adding that to it. Go get him, I’ll stay put unless the door guards ring for me.”

Finn was already planning to tell them they’d be doing no such thing until either he returned or Stuart came, not unless a whole army of fairies was attacking the gates, but he didn’t say so. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing. “I know you don’t like it when we fuss…but we don’t want to lose our king.”

“A sentiment I appreciate, thank you,” John responded. “But I also don’t want to lose any more of my people than I already have, so we’ll have to compromise.”

Finn bowed again, then hurried out. His exit had the effect of pushing back the townsman who was huffily making his way to the doors, and he extended an arm to block the man’s path when he even more huffily tried to go around. “I’m sorry, my lord, you’ll have to wait,” he said. “The king just attended to another murderous traitor, and I’m afraid there’s a bit of a mess in there right now – like there was yesterday, you know. Just let me go get someone to clean it up, then you can go in.”

He’d know the man would have argued, but the mention of ‘yesterday’s mess’ was enough to see him backing down with an expression of distaste. Finn hid his smile until he was back outside. Word had definitely gotten around about the pool of blood decorating the throne room floor the day before. And letting them all think their king had been up early killing more traitors could only help to keep the man safer.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Kristoff and Claude re-entered the castle with the children the same way they’d left it, except that this time they were being led by one rock troll and shadowed by two more; Kristoff had sent the fourth one off to find Pebble and get a report from him the moment they’d gotten inside. Everything seemed quiet, though, at least until they entered the King’s Passage. A man’s voice reached them first, louder than it should have been and with a blustering tone that was growing increasingly less than respectful, and then John’s tired voice broke in. “Lord Frodesson, you still haven’t explained to me exactly what this situation has to do with you. The traitor’s own father doesn’t want the body back, in fact he was relieved I wasn’t going to make them taint their family crypt with the ashes.”

“It’s a shame on their line! Why, I’m told the boy’s mother is nearly insane with grief over these goings-on…”

“She isn’t,” John interrupted again. “She was understandably distraught when she found out what her son had been up to, and so ashamed she couldn’t meet anyone’s eye, but I spoke with her and so did the castle’s cook and she was calmer when she left. So either your source of information likes to improve on the tales he tells you, or you’re just making things up to suit your argument.”

That had been a slap, and the outraged intake of the man’s breath said it had connected. “Why you…!”

The rock troll pushed open the door, and Kristoff stepping out into the throne room holding William with Claude right behind him carrying a sleepy, cooing Annabelle against his shoulder had the effect of shutting the blustering man’s mouth with a rather comical snap. It also startled John to his feet, but the sight of his children made the young king’s pale face light up with a relief which was almost painful for Kristoff to see. “We aren’t interrupting something important, are we?”

“Just the opposite,” John said, hurrying over to them, ignoring the renewed spluttering behind him. He held out his arms to take William, who at first seemed reluctant but then wrapped his arms around his father’s neck and sobbed into his shoulder. John held him tightly, his own eyes not entirely dry. “I missed you too, William. But your first adventure wasn’t all that bad, was it? You had Claude and Misha and then Uncle Kristoff came to get you…”

The sobbing gained words Kristoff could just barely make out, but he knew what they were because he’d already heard them. “He thinks you sent him away, John. His bitch of a nurse has been telling him he’s a bad child and a bother to everyone, and that you’d eventually have her send him into the woods for the wolves to eat.”

“Oh she did, did she?” John’s jaw set, but the hand he stroked his son’s curling brown-gold hair with was gentle. “William, look at Papa. Look at me.” The boy peeked at him with one wet brown eye. “Son, you aren’t bad. Ragna is the one who was bad.”

The other brown eye appeared. “I bad.”

“No, Ragna was bad – she was so bad we had to put her in a cage.” John kissed his forehead. “I sent you and your sister with Claude to protect you from a very bad man who came here.” Still unsure. “Claude goes into the woods all the time, and so does Uncle Kristoff. Are they bad? Have wolves eaten them?”

William was horrified. “No!”

“Exactly.”

That got him another hug, but William almost immediately sat back up out of it, this time pointing over his shoulder. “No! Bad birdie!”

That was when Kristoff saw the stone cage and the blue-breasted bird. “What…”

But John’s attention was all for his son. “William,” he said in a low voice, “have you seen that birdie before?” A violent nod. “Did it scare you?” William buried his face in his father’s neck again, and John patted his back. “Don’t worry, Papa is going to take care of it. The bad birdie won’t be able to scare you ever again.”

Claude’s eyes were as wide as Kristoff had ever seen them. “Your Majesty…”

John shook his head. “I’ll explain momentarily. Kristoff, could you please take William back?” The boy clung to him. “Just for a moment, William, just for a moment. I need to remove someone from the room, and then you can sit with me, all right? You and Annabelle will get to stay with Papa all day and all this night as well.” That made Annabelle coo, and John freed a hand to stroke his baby daughter’s rosy cheek. “Princess, Papa missed you too,” he said, and she babbled at him happily. “I know. You can tell me all about it later.”

Kristoff took his nephew back, exchanging a puzzled look with Claude. Had more been going on before they’d been close enough to hear? John had already gone back to his throne, although he didn’t sit down. “Lord Frodesson, this audience is at an end. But first…” He stepped down off the dais as though he was going to confront the larger man – and apparently Frodesson thought so too, because he looked rather more alarmed than he probably wanted to – but then John abruptly pivoted on his heel, drawing a knife from his belt and thrusting it between the stone bars of the cage. The bird screamed, trying to swipe at him through the bars with green-glowing talons, but he withdrew the knife and moved out of reach before it could. “Bitch,” he spat. “Were you just waiting for your chance, then? Fooling us into thinking you trapped in that form by magic, planning to reverse the change and get us to enlarge your prison, allowing you to escape between the bars? And that aside, did you think for one instant that I would show the least drop of mercy to one who not only betrayed my trust, but who also terrorized my child?”

The bird screamed again, but in a different key, and a few feathers fell away to reveal pink skin beneath. The rock troll who had led Kristoff and Claude in hurried to the young king’s side. “Your Majesty, being injured could cause her to lose control of the transformation. I can enlarge the cage just enough to prevent…a mess from occurring, if you’ll allow me…”

“Of course, thank you – and the guards will be thanking you too, for not making them clean up yet another bloody mess in here.”

“Better that than seeing her get free, Your Majesty,” Stuart said. The cage was already stretching out as both feathers and flesh began to press against the stone bars, but he moved his king back anyway, and Lord Frodesson as well as something of an afterthought. “Were you wanting to question her, or should I finish her off?”

“We’ll see if she feels like talking first,” John told him. He stepped closer again, getting the expanding bird to swat at him which resulted in a blood-streaked arm ending up pinched in place between two stone bars. The nails at the tips of her rapidly lengthening fingers were still glowing faintly green. “I admit to being quite interested in knowing how long she’s been able to do this. And how she’s been able to hide her talent from the queen as well.”

The bird’s beak had both shrunk and expanded into a pink mouth, which sneered at him. “My mistress is more than powerful enough to do whatever she likes.”

“Of course,” John allowed. “Except for coming into the castle to do her own dirty work, that is. Instead she played on the greed of the weak to get her way. I thought you didn’t much like the idea of being Gunter’s mistress, Ragna?”

She screeched in rage, which left her coughing. Fully back into human form now save for a few stray feathers and still coal-black bird eyes, the children’s nurse was cramped into a tight ball of compacted flesh within the confining stone bars save for the one outstretched arm. “I was to be his lady!”

“You have a short memory. I already told you Gunter had demanded Maiken as his payment for helping to overthrow the kingdom.” Claude’s intake of breath at that was so sharp Kristoff had to think it had been painful. “Even the mercenaries he was working with wanted so see him hung for that, their leader offered to build the gibbet for me.”

“No! She would have given him to me! We were to be married, and she said she would give me a beautiful gown such as any queen would be envious of…”

“So in return for treachery, and for terrorizing a child, she offered you a pretty dress and a man who didn’t want you in the first place,” John returned. “Did she also promise to keep him faithful? Because I guarantee you that without magic, he wouldn’t have been.”

She spat, and where a drop fell on the floor it smoked like burning acid; John quickly tossed the dagger he’d still been holding away. “He loved me.”

“He loved that you were helping him, I’m sure. So was that why you weren’t in the nursery when Claude came the other day, Ragna? Had you already flown off to let Fritjof and your unfaithful lover know the children were ready for the taking so soon as the castle’s defenses had been breached?” Sullen silence. He cocked his head, considering her, then held out his hand to Stuart. “Let me borrow your sword for a moment, please.” Only somewhat reluctantly, the guard drew his sword and put it into his king’s hand. “Thank you.” John laid the edge of the blade against the girl’s outstretched arm, letting her feel its sharpness. “I want answers, Ragna. How long has this been in the works? How long have you been working for the fairy bitches and against the best interests of not just Arendelle but also the rest of the world? How deep does your greed and treachery go?”

More spit. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

John nodded. “Yes. But whether I do it quickly or slowly is entirely up to you.” He drew the sword back, leaving a red line on the pink flesh, then repositioned the blade at her wrist. “I repeat: You tormented _my son_. A king knows he must hold himself back, but a father sees no need. I’d happily see you suffer a thousand cuts before you die, and shower you with seawater to extend your suffering before slowly sinking this blade into your worthless heart. Now find your tongue or answer to William’s father instead of your king.”

It was obvious this frightened her – and Lord Frodesson as well, if the horrified expression on the man’s face was to be believed – but she tried for spite one more time. “You aren’t my king! The Blue Fairy says you were not meant to sit on this throne, none of this was meant to happen as it did. She and her sisters will set things to rights with help from their faithful servants, and all will be as it should be once again!”

“Oh, things will be as they should be soon enough,” John told her. “Is there anything else you’d care to tell me?” No answer, and he nodded. “All right. There was one more question I wanted answered, but I can get that answer without your cooperation.” And with that he withdrew the sword from her wrist and handed it back to Stuart before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a handkerchief; holding the fine cloth by two of its corners, he swiped it across the girl’s glowing nails several times before moving to hold it above the shallow cut he’d made on her arm. He looked into the fear-widened black eyes. “I want to know what this poison does,” he said. “I’ve wanted to know for several years now.” And then he pulled the green-streaked handkerchief down around her arm and quickly tied the ends into a knot to hold it in place.

Ragna screamed. She tried without success to pull her arm back in, but it was firmly pinned in place by the stone bars. Green lines began to creep out from underneath the handkerchief, running along her skin like evil vines, seemingly following the veins below. Faster and faster they expanded to cover every visible inch of her body, even to circling and then invading her eyes…and then, the screaming stopped. Her breath stuttered in her chest, her skin turned gray, and then just as quickly as they’d appeared the green lines vanished, leaving behind bloodless skin and staring dead black eyes. A single remaining blue feather drifted between the stone bars and fell toward the floor, extinguishing itself halfway down in a puff of green vapor.

John looked at the dead girl for a long moment, then turned back to the rock troll. “I don’t suppose that could be sealed up with her body inside, could it? Because I’m fairly certain the poison will still work whether she’s dead or not.”

The troll considered for a moment. “Did Your Majesty want it to stay here or be taken someplace else?”

“I don’t think it should stay in here,” John said. “We could put it in the north garden, that way if the stone is ever compromised we’d know by the grass dying. I’ve only seen this poison in action the one time before, but its effect on plants is rather dramatic.”

“A good plan,” the troll agreed. He wrinkled up his brow, frowning in concentration, and stone flowed up to cover the cage, leaving it an egg-shaped obelisk. A design of vines and flowers crawled across the smooth stone surface, and then inscribed words appeared: _If no life grows near me,_ _‘Tis high time to flee_. “Does that meet with Your Majesty’s approval?”

“More than,” John told him. “You are…”

“Gothi, Your Majesty.”

“Gothi,” John repeated. “Thank you. Your craftsmanship is most impressive. And I especially appreciate the inscription, it’s a very nice touch.”

“We can’t be too careful when fairies are involved,” Gothi told him. “We’ll have this moved out to the garden when the others come back.”

“Thank you,” John said again. He turned his attention to his shocked subject. “Are you quite all right, Lord Frodesson? My apologies for coming at you that way, but I required a distraction and you were the only person in position to help me create one.”

The larger, older man’s mouth worked for a moment before words emerged. “You just…right here…you just killed her!”

“Quite,” was John’s placid answer. “For obvious reasons, hanging her along with the other traitors wasn’t an option. I hadn’t yet decided how or when she should be executed, but I’ve known since early this morning that she would have to be. Of course, this morning we also thought she was trapped in bird form because she’d failed in her task.”

“Her…task?”

“To kill me.” John raised an eyebrow at the man’s renewed shock. “What, you thought all of this was play-acting, Frodesson, mere political drama? I assure you, it hasn’t been. We’ve just weathered an attempted coup led by men whose efforts were being supported by creatures who hide the foulness of their intentions behind sweet words and sparkling displays of magic. Fairies can’t enter the castle directly, as the rock trolls graciously sealed the stones against them for us some years ago, but they don’t appear to have much difficulty finding people willing to enter on their behalf.” He took a step closer, locking eyes with the larger, older man. “No doubt this situation is as far outside of your understanding as though you were a duck watching a parade, but I will distill it for you: Our kingdom is being threatened, and not just by mortal actors. I want, even _need_ you to come to me if you have concerns, or news, or even gossip if you believe it to be something I should know about, but do not expect me to have patience when you demand an audience only to waste my time with pointless posturing. Because I swore to Lord Sel that Arendelle would not fall if I could at all prevent it, and that is _exactly what I am trying to do_.”

From his place of concealment behind the draperies, Ari smirked as the formerly blustering, self-important windbag of a man bowed and murmured apologies before departing the throne room with more haste than grace. He’d tell the story when he returned home, if not before, and word would spread not only about the threat posed by the fairies but also that any who raised a hand against the royal family would be shown no mercy. It might at least give others thinking to plan such a coup pause, if nothing else.

 

That evening, John retired to his rooms with William and Annabelle, gave them a much-needed bath with no little difficulty and then tucked them into his bed – it was a large bed, and with some clever arrangement of pillows and bolsters it had easily been divided up into separate sleeping spaces for himself and the children. Kristoff had retired to his usual guest room after an early supper, planning on leaving the next morning to return home, and John had ordered Claude to retire early with Maiken as well. John didn’t feel able to sleep yet, though, so instead he sat in his chair in front of the fire and tried to sort out the dark thoughts he was having. The blue flicker from the corner was a welcome distraction from this exercise, and he waved a hand. “You can come out, if you care to,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name when we first met.”

The shade of the mercenaries’ captain stepped out of the shadows and bowed. “Considering how we first met, Your Majesty, I’d not have thought you’d want it.” He cocked his head. “How did you know?”

John smiled, albeit rather grimly. “Gunter’s body. I knew your men must have had a reason for killing him five times over that way other than not liking his morals. He took you by surprise?”

A grimace. “Very much so. And he apparently thought that meant he was entitled to take my place, if the last words I heard from him weren’t my ears playing tricks on me.” The shade came a little closer, grimace becoming a rather sympathetic frown. “Your ancestor told me you had to kill another one. Can’t stop thinking about it?”

“No.” John made a face of his own. “To be honest, I’m wondering if I did that last one a bit too easily. I don’t feel as…bad about taking her life as part of me thinks I ought to, if that makes sense.”

The shade nodded. “It does. But I’m sure you know that the day you don’t wonder is the day it’s become too easy, right?” John nodded. “Then you’re fine. You didn’t torture the bitch to death, right?”

“I wanted to.”

“I’d have wanted the same, but I wouldn’t have done it either. You’ll pardon my bluntness, Your Majesty, but no man in his right mind can walk down that path with both eyes open.”

John nodded slowly. “I don’t disagree with you…but how _much_ I wanted to walk down it is still disturbing to me.”

“Understandable.” And he’d feared it would be more than disturbing to others, of course, which was why the young king was alone in his rooms talking to a dead man instead of someplace else with a bottle of good wine confiding in a living one. The shade considered for a moment, then sat down on nothing to put them at a level for speaking comfortably. “As you asked, my name is – or rather, it was – Flavio Vestri di Abano. And although standing guard was the bane of my existence when I was a young soldier, I felt it was the least I could do to make up for the trouble I had helped to cause for you.” He waved a hand at the bed with its stacked pillows. “No one you could trust to watch over them, or you simply couldn’t bear to have them out of your sight?”

“Both” John admitted. “The Rock Trolls finally found the missing maids. Ragna had led them all to a ‘hiding place’ and then used magic to hide the door – on both the inside and the outside. I had them taken back to their families to recover from the ordeal and I’m not sure when or if any of them will return, so we may be short on servants for the foreseeable future.” He shook his head. “We still don’t know what was going on there, why she didn’t let them out once Fritjof had taken control. I do recall it being said he was more than annoyed when he found that there were no servants available to answer the bell, so that was no plan of his.”

“Nor one I had heard of either. Another plot within a plot?”

“Obviously, but to what end I have no idea. Although I did warn their families to guard them carefully and bring them back to the castle – or at least to send word – if anything strange happened.” John sighed. “Elsa might have been able to tell if anything had been wrong with them, magically speaking, but there’s no one else here who has that gift. And by the time my wife returns home, it will most likely be too late.”

“You’re not wrong.” Ari slid through the door and took an invisible ‘seat’ of his own, making something of a show of stretching out his legs. “I couldn’t see anything amiss with the ones that were found, but my ability to do so is limited in some ways. My advice to you, however,” he told his descendant, “is to stop worrying about that unless something comes of it. Honestly, John, my guess is the girl wasn’t able to undo what she’d done in the first place because it wasn’t her power she’d used to do it. Perhaps it was supposed to come off by itself once some specific goal had been reached, such as your death.”

“Or theirs,” Flavio put in. “I’ve heard tales of dark magics which can turn the dead to slaves. Even the worst men I know wouldn’t do such a thing, but fairies might lack such scruples.”

“They do,” John confirmed. “The Fairy Marguerite killed an entire ship’s crew and passengers just to hide the fact that our former rulers had not been on board. I had thought she must be an exception, that the others couldn’t be so bad…but now I don’t believe that to be the case.” He covered a yawn with his hand. “It was nice of this one to mark her servant with her colors, though. If that’s a vanity they all share, then it would at least be a way to tell their handiworks apart.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Ari said. “I think the blue one just likes her own color a bit too much, or perhaps it’s her way of giving fair warning.” John covered another yawn, and he shook his head. “You should go to bed, John. Your mind may be saying it wants nothing to do with sleep, but your body doubtless won’t agree once it’s settled into that nice, soft mattress. Not to mention, if you’re careless enough to fall asleep in that chair you won’t be able to move come morning.”

“I feel like I can barely move now,” John admitted. “It was a long day.” He pushed himself up and out of the chair with a groan he wouldn’t have let out had any living person been present. He had already changed into his nightclothes, as the children had been generous in the sharing of their bathwater earlier. “Are you staying in here, Ari?”

“I thought I might sit and talk to Flavio for a time,” the shade said. “Unless you believe our conversation might prevent you from sleeping, in which case we can take it elsewhere.” His descendant waved off that idea with a tired hand, and he smiled. “Then yes, I’ll be staying. Good night, John.”

“Good night to you, Ari – and to you, Flavio.”

“Good night, Your Majesty.” The two shades at once began to converse rather aimlessly just as any living men might at the end of a long day, Ari asking after places he’d once visited and Flavio telling him of the way some things had changed and some had not, and so when John did fall asleep his dreams were filled with canals and cobbled walks instead of blue-breasted birds and poisoned goblets. Which was what Ari had intended, of course. His descendant needed all the rest he could get, as his days were going to be neither shorter nor easier for the foreseeable future.

 


	10. Chapter 10

A week passed – a very long, strange week in the Kingdom of Arendelle. The king’s guards went about with grim looks upon their faces, the Watch was being kept both from its own tower and from a parapet high atop the castle, and down by the docks five bodies dangled like rotting fruit from vines of coarse hemp. This had caused a good deal of talk, as no one had been executed for treason in Arendelle for thirty years or more, but the matter of the royal children’s nurse had proved even more of a scandal than that. From the tales the recovered maids had told of Ragna trapping them with magic to the account Lord Frodesson had related of what he had witnessed in the throne room, stories of the wicked nurse who could turn into a poisonous bird were being embellished upon in every corner of the city and Ragna was well on her way to becoming a cautionary fireside tale. If some of these stories were more sympathetic to the girl than others, it could easily be put down to the relative social distance between the tale-teller and Gunter’s family. Ragna’s family had consisted only of her mother, whose own sour, grasping demeanor was such that she was well on her way to being cast in more than one story as the reason her daughter had been so easily swayed by the empty promises of a wife-stealing traitor and an evil fairy.

Other equally made-up stories were being whispered, very quietly, regarding the return of the queen. If she would return, when she would return, and what would happen to the kingdom either way. It would not have been a shock to John that his subjects felt they might have been in considerable danger if their queen had returned to find either he or the children dead, but he would have been more than a little surprised to hear that his subjects’ confidence in his ability to rule the kingdom by himself had increased tenfold – fireside stories were already being spun about him as well, and about Claude and even Kristoff, as small as the King of the Rock Trolls’ part in the events had been. John had not heard most of these stories, however. Both kingdom and castle were in disarray, and he was much more concerned with preventing Arendelle’s current problems from growing larger than he was with the growth of his own legend. Not to mention that in the absence of either nurse or maids or extra guards he’d taken the care of his children almost entirely into his own hands, which were in consequence rather more full than most kings’ hands were expected to be at any given time – literally as well as figuratively, as William still required a good deal of reassurance from him and probably would for some time to come.

And so it was that when Queen Elsa and Captain Dezhnev returned, many things were not as they had been when they’d left – and not just because the state of the ship as she blew into port was such that a good many workers on or near the docks hid themselves in fear, thinking it a ghost ship bearing the dead. This had displeased Elsa greatly, but Dezhnev had been more than a little amused; Nasim, for his part, had been both, and when no one had dared to so much as even set foot onto the dock he in something of a huff had used his power unasked to move all hands off of the ship as well as all of their belongings, and then transferred all else that was salvageable into neat piles nearby, leaving a skeleton ship made of ice behind on the water. If some of the weathered oaken timbers in the process became finely carved teak and cedar, and paint became jewels and plate, he did not mention it – he’d grown more than a little fond of his temporary master over the course of their journey, and he did not wish Dezhnev or his men to be left in bad straits owing to the loss of the ship. Dezhnev himself did not notice this transformation, as he was handing out both gold and instructions to his crew, and Elsa was more concerned with calling out the people who were still hesitating to approach them. “Come here!” she ordered. “How else would you expect me to hold a broken ship together, with string and a cut-up petticoat?” She waved her hand, and the ice skeleton crumbled into the water with a great splash. People hesitantly began to approach, and she at once put them to work. “You, you, and you – yes, you! – move the cargo and the salvage into the royal warehouse for safekeeping. And I want guards kept on it, at least two.”

One man bowed, shaking. “Your Majesty…we have no guards to spare.” He waved a hand toward the gallows on the verge. “The old guard-captain and three others were found out as traitors…”

“I gathered that someone had been, since they were hung with their backs to the sea,” she said, somewhat impatiently. “Very well. Captain! I’m sorry, but your men will have to stand watch over what’s left from the ship, we’re apparently short of guards.”

“I had feared that might be the case, when I saw the fruit of treason dangling from its tree,” he said, striding over to her. He nodded to the man. “Is there any news we should know before we go to the king?” The man did not appear to know how to answer this, and Dezhnev rolled his eyes. “Very well, I will ask him myself.” He offered Elsa his arm. “Your Majesty, shall we?”

She took the offered arm with a smile. “Of course, Captain. Nasim, you are coming with us, right? I wanted John to meet you.”

“I am coming, my lady,” Nasim said. “I am desirous of meeting your king as well.” He raised an eyebrow at the wide-eyed, shaking man. “You should have more bravery than this, I do not know what to make of you. And you do not even offer your queen transport, you would let her walk the streets like a merchant’s daughter!” He snapped his fingers and a pretty jeweled palanquin with tracings of gold and silver appeared, curtained with fine white silk; four blank-faced figures which were more than a little obviously not alive appeared at a second snap, standing ready by the poles. “Queen Elsa, please accept this unworthy transport.”

Dezhnev thought the quaking dock worker was going to faint dead away, and he concealed his laughter with some difficulty as he handed Elsa into the box and saw her settled on the richly embroidered blue cushions. He waved to his men, who were also making something of a show of their respect for the Queen of Arendelle with deep bows and doffing of caps, and then the doll-servants picked up the poles and began to walk. The captain waited until they were away from the docks to nod to Nasim. “I should have warned you before we docked that not all of the men of Arendelle would be counted as such in our own countries.”

“A lot of them are afraid of me,” Elsa concurred. “I’m used to it, but it upsets John. I didn’t realize it bothered you as well, Captain.”

Dezhnev shrugged. “We have different standards for the measure of manhood in Rasseeyah. It is a much…harsher place than Arendelle, both in climate and in temper.”

“As it is in my own country,” Nasim agreed. “But where you are cold we are hot, and where you have snow we have sand.” And in his own country, a man who had stammered and shaken instead of serving his ruler as the one on the docks had done would have been flogged by the royal guards for displaying such impertinence, but he did not say so; Queen Elsa, for all her power, had a soft heart, and while he knew her to be a strong woman he also recognized that the harshness of his people’s laws was distressing to her. He thought the good captain had most likely avoided telling her of how heavy the hand of the tzars could be for the same reason.

People stared as they walked by, but much to the displeasure of both Dezhnev and Nasim none ventured to offer their queen either welcome or obeisance. Elsa just ignored them, trying to keep her worry under control, completely unaware that the effort was making her look more than a little displeased herself and also decorating the road with a carpet of frost and snow. The castle gates opened for them at once, however, and Finn was waiting in the courtyard just beyond to offer his queen a deep bow and his hand for exiting the palanquin. She cocked a white-gold eyebrow at him…and then she smiled. “You’re our new guard-captain now, Finn?”

Finn drew himself up and nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. Captain Agarsson was…well, I’m sure you saw him coming in. He’s the one with all the…um, holes.”

“I’m sure he deserved them,” she said. “John is…”

“In the throne room waiting for you, with the prince and princess,” he told her. “He told me to bring Captain Dezhnev and whoever else might be with you,” here he offered Nasim a polite nod, which was returned, “in directly.” He frowned at the less than human bearers of the palanquin, which were just standing there. “Are these…?”

“A convenience only,” Nasim said, and with a wave of his hand they disappeared. The palanquin remained, however, and Elsa gave him a look. “I am proud of my handiwork,” he disclaimed. “But if you do not like it…”

“You’re impossible,” she told him. “Of course I like it – it’s beautiful, just like everything else you make. But I’m not sure what I’d do with it, because we use horses to move things, not people.”

In a blink, the pretty box had become a pretty little sledge, and a pure white pony of thick coat and sturdy build was in the traces. “A gift for the royal children, then,” Nasim said with a bow. “It is my understanding that this kingdom has an unlimited supply of snow.”

Finn hid a smile. He had no idea who this magical giant of a man might be, but it was good to hear the queen laugh.

 

Inside the castle, the entryway was filled with people waiting for an audience, and a few who had apparently just been denied one and were more than a little displeased. One man, in fact, was holding forth quite loudly about it, but a small fall of snowflakes spun him around and the look on his queen’s face apparently froze the rest of his words in his mouth. “Go home,” Elsa told him. “Everyone else is being polite, and waiting their turn.” His mouth opened. “No, you know the rules. If you’re rude you have to wait until everyone else is done. And by the time that happens, it will be too late for you. You can come back tomorrow, hopefully in a better mood.”

The man hesitated, and this time Dezhnev rather meaningfully laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Try me,” he said. “We have just returned from a long and tiring voyage; I have little patience left, and none at all for a such as yourself.”

Finn put himself obliquely between them. “Master Hedegaard, please leave at once or the guards will bar you from entering the castle for three days – the way they did last time.” He did not quite roll his eyes when the man flounced off. “I apologize, Your Majesty. We should have cleared him from the area before you arrived.”

“I have no problem with you giving him the opportunity to behave like a grown man and not a child,” Elsa said. Not at all quietly, which set a few of the other townsmen assembled to straightening themselves and their demeanors accordingly. She noticed this, of course, and offered a disarmingly sweet smile. “If you think you’ll grow tired of waiting – we do have much news to discuss with the king – you may come back tomorrow and have your audience just as soon as any official business has been attended to. Master Hedgaard will just have to wait until you’re all done.”

As Øyvind Hedgaard was not well-liked by his fellows, this queen-sanctioned opportunity to get ahead of him was too good to pass up for many of the assembled and they departed with bows and murmured declarations of happiness that their queen had returned home safely. The few who remained held their ground but looked uncomfortable, which she acknowledged with a nod. “If it’s that important, you may have to wait but we’ll make time for you,” she said, sweeping past them with a nod. “Finn, I’ll want you to come in with us. Some of this is news you’ll need to hear.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” He gave one of the remaining men a meaningful look – he knew what that ‘important’ matter was, and knew it was neither important nor anything that truly mattered, and then hurried ahead to get the door for his queen and company.

Inside the throne room, their entrance was greeted with a glad cry of “Mama!”, and then Prince William was toddling toward his mother as fast as his short legs could take him. She was more than happy to sweep him up into her arms and kiss his rosy cheek. “Mama missed you too, William. Were you waiting for me?”

“We all were.” John had come down off the dais to meet them, first embracing his wife and then, to Dezhnev’s surprise, offering him a similarly heartfelt greeting. The young king of Arendelle looked as though he had aged ten years in their absence. “I would ask how your voyage went,” he said, stepping back, “but word of the state of your ship was brought to me the moment she came within view. Were any men lost?”

Dezhnev shook his head. “Thanks to the efforts of the queen, all hands survived the storm in safety, Your Majesty. And thanks to the efforts of the djinn known as Nasim, who created a strong but gentle wind to fill our mended sails, we returned with more speed than I would have thought possible.”

Nasim took this as his cue to prostrate himself. “King of Arendelle. For my error in aiding their enemy, I was ordered to serve your queen and this good captain until they were safely returned to port. And as they were both under your aegis, I owe you reparation as well as apology for the danger they were placed in by my actions. Any one thing you may desire in all the world, I will provide for you.”

“Any one…” John’s eyes widened, and his hand went to the breast of his coat. “Rise, Nasim. There is a task I urgently need to have accomplished, but it is…complicated.”

He motioned for the djinn to follow him back up onto the dais, where a table covered with papers was sitting beside the curtains, speaking to him urgently in a voice too low for any other ears to hear. Nasim listened intently, and examined the papers John produced from inside his coat. His demeanor grew very grim, and he nodded. “You speak truly of the urgency of this matter, King of Arendelle. This I will do for you, and with pleasure. I will return.”

He disappeared, leaving behind a gust of wind that smelled of spices and hot sand, and John retrieved a sleepy Annabelle from the crib behind her mother’s throne before coming back down to them. “There are…a lot of things going on at present,” he said. “Not just here in Arendelle, everywhere. But I would prefer to wait until he comes back before I say any more.”

Dezhnev felt a stirring of alarm, especially when he noticed how wide the queen’s eyes were. “John, why are the children in the throne room?”

“Because I don’t dare let them out of my sight.” John rubbed his eyes. “Like I said, it’s a long story. But, in short, Fritjof tried to stage a coup with help from the Blue Fairy and our former guard-captain. Ragna had also been working for the Blue Fairy, we can’t be sure for how long. She drugged the children in preparation for Fritjof’s arrival, and when that didn’t happen she bided her time and then tried to kill me.” He raised his free hand when frost scattered across the floor. “She’s dead, I killed her myself and her body is sealed in stone in the North Garden due to it still being filled with deadly poison. But if you happen to see any more birds with a blue breast flitting about, kill them immediately.”

“The maids…”

“Ragna trapped them in a room, then hid the door both inside and out with magic – they weren’t found for days, and even then only because the rock trolls had joined the search. Only two of them have recovered enough to come back, but they refuse to stay in the castle, they’re escorted home each evening by one of the guards.” Annabelle cooed, and he kissed her forehead. “We’ve been doing fine. Some of the more self-important bastards who come for audience have had a problem with the children being present, but after I had those removed from the castle the rest of them fell into line.”

“I almost pulled my sword on one just before we came in,” Dezhnev admitted. “And the ‘men’ at the docks are lucky Nasim did not feel free to punish them for their lack of respect – I could tell he wanted to.”

“I could too,” Elsa said. “But that wouldn’t have cured their cowardice, so it would have been a wasted effort.”

In spite of himself, Dezhnev laughed. “You are not wrong, Your Majesty. But even so, it would have been satisfying to both Nasim and myself to do so.” He nodded to John. “He was approached by one of the fairy folk and tasked with stirring up a storm against my ship. King Sel was not amused, nor was his own master, hence the manacles he wears and his penalty of servitude. Queen Elsa objected to the slave’s clothing he had been made to wear, however, and ordered him to don garments more suitable to her tastes.”

“He was barely wearing anything.” Elsa waved it off. “I understand he was being punished, but the Northern seas are much colder than the deserts of his homeland, that was just cruel.”

A wind rushed through the chamber just then, rifling the heavy curtains, and Nasim reappeared. He bowed to John. “It was as you feared,” he said. “But I was in time.”

“Thank goodness for that.” John approached the frightened woman and children who had appeared with the djinn. “My lady, you are safe now,” he told her. “I am so sorry I had no means by which I could remove you from that situation sooner.” He waved his free hand. “Your husband is here, and he will be as safe as I can make him, you have my word.”

Dezhnev started violently, but before he could have a further reaction the woman – his wife! – had spun around with a cry and rushed into his arms, and his children were clinging to the both of them. “Marta…Your Majesty?!”

John shook his head. “Ivan has fallen, Gregor,” he said, shocking Dezhnev all over again with the use of his given name. “Not to death, but to deceit. I received a missive from him breaking our alliance and declaring you a traitor. His reasons were nonsense and lies…but what’s done is done, and I’ve been wracking my brain ever since to come up with a way to save your family.” He inclined his head to Nasim. “I know it was your duty, but thank you just the same.”

Nasim bowed. “It was my pleasure to perform this task,” he rumbled. “You were not wrong about the cause. The Daughters of Circe have been there, and their webs are woven deep and strong.” That made Dezhnev gasp, and the djinn nodded gravely. “He is lost to you, Captain; and were you to attempt to regain the former trust of your kinship he would doubtless kill you without a second thought. Your men may return home, so long as they do so quietly and speak not your name where any can hear…but you may not.”

“Which means your home is now in Arendelle,” John said before Dezhnev could say anything. “And as you’re without a ship, and soon to be without your crew, that also means some adjustments need to be made.” He handed Annabelle to Finn and drew his sword, not quite managing not to wince. “Captain Gregor Dezhnev, formerly in the service of Tzar Ivan of Rasseeyah…kneel.” Dezhnev dropped to one knee as much out of shock as obedience. “You have been a good friend to us,” John announced. “And you served your kinsman with honor and loyalty. As you are now without a place because of the friendship between us, I feel it is my responsibility to see to it that you and your family are provided for.” He touched the flat of the sword to  Dezhnev’s shoulder. “Rise, Sir Gregor,” he intoned, and pale golden light spread out across the flagstones. “You are hereby appointed Minister of Trade of the Kingdom of Arendelle, a position for which I believe you are uniquely well-suited.”

Dezhnev climbed back to his feet in something of a daze. “Your Majesty…I do not know what to say.”

“Neither do I,” John admitted, managing with no little difficulty to re-sheath his sword; it did not escape Dezhnev’s notice that both Finn and the guard on duty and the throne room seemed as though they would have liked to stop him from trying. “Except that I am so sorry for your losses – of your cousin, your livelihood, and your homeland. You and your family will of course live here in the castle, for safety’s sake as well as convenience. And once we’ve found a nurse who isn’t trying to help overthrow the kingdom just to get a pretty dress, your children may stay in the nursery with William and Annabelle.”

That brought the captain’s wife out of her shock. “The children have no nurse? Who has been taking care of them?”

“I have,” John told her. “At present we only have our cook, two maids, my huntsman and the guards. Which we’re also a bit short on,” he told Dezhnev apologetically, and seemed relieved when the older man merely nodded. “I think we’ve routed all of the traitors for the time being…but still, I go armed around the castle now and so should you. The rock trolls have added to the safeguards against fairy magic which we already had, but that has no effect on regular people. And the remaining guards can’t be everywhere at once.”

Elsa was frowning. “Where is Claude? I’d have expected him to be shadowing your every step, John.”

“He’s shadowing Maiken’s every step instead, partly of his own accord and partly because I ordered him to,” John told her, taking Annabelle back from Finn. “Part of Gunter’s deal with Fritjof was that he would get Maiken for himself. Before Claude got back with the children, one of Per’s men was guarding her.” Her eyebrows went up, and he smiled. “I _told_ you it was a long story.”

“As is the one she and the good captain have to tell,” Nasim said with a bow. “Permit me to aid you in sharing your tales in comfort.” He waved one black-nailed and richly beringed hand – wrist rather conspicuously missing its manacle – and a heavy table appeared, its tile-patterned surface laden with dome-covered dishes and heaped, steaming platters, surrounded by cushioned benches and with a finely carved and cushioned chair at both head and foot. He bowed again, very low, to Elsa, then to Dezhnev…and then he vanished in a golden swirl of wind that spiraled up into nothingness.

Finn counted the place settings, then nodded to his astonished king. “I’ll just be getting Claude and Maiken, Your Majesty. And then I’ll let those waiting know you won’t be available for audience for…two hours, I think, and advise them to return tomorrow.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” was John’s response; he had also been counting plates. “And then come back yourself and join us, Finn – he made a place for you as well.”

“Your Majesty…?!”

“I know we haven’t been standing on ceremony lately, but you’re captain of the royal guard, Finn,” John reminded him. “You have rank now, of course you’ll be eating with us. Is Lord Pettersson out there?” Finn nodded, and John rather unceremoniously gave Annabelle back to him. “All right, I’ll go take care of that myself – I know what his issue is, and it’s not a matter I care to involve myself in. And he knows it, so me yelling at him should send the rest of them scurrying as well.” That made William clap his little hands in delight, and John rolled his eyes. “You’re going to grow up to be a tyrant, I just know it,” he said…but he still held out his arms, taking the boy back from his mother and making tracks for the doors. “Very well, we’ll chase them out together. But in return I expect not to be splashed quite so much when you have your bath tonight…”

Elsa took Annabelle from Finn, raising an eyebrow. “There was no one who could take Ragna’s place?”

He shook his head. “No one willing to stay in the castle, Your Majesty. And having the children in here has kept the level of civility a bit higher than it might have been otherwise.” He pulled out her chair for her – and it was obviously her chair, as the carved back was surmounted with an alabaster-inlaid snowflake centered on a thumb-sized sapphire – and then hurried out the kitchen entrance to fetch the Royal Huntsman and his wife. It was going to be an interesting evening…


	11. Chapter 11

That night, after a delicious if exotic dinner and a great deal of discussion, everyone retired to their rooms. Nasim had, not surprisingly, prepared appropriate rooms for Dezhnev and his family and furnished them with many of their possessions which had been confiscated by Ivan, and so they found settling in to be much easier than might have been expected. Marta waited until their children were well asleep before speaking her fears to her husband. “Are we safe here? The arm of the Tzar is long…”

“He will not stretch it out to this kingdom,” Dezhnev assured her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Even in his current madness, he must still know the power Queen Elsa wields. She imprisoned one of the wicked _feya_ , Marta – sealed the bitch in blue ice, which is now buried in a glacier. And as she is now… _disappointed_ in Ivan,” so Elsa had said at dinner, “she would be most likely to send his grasping fingers back to him in a box, resting on a pillow of snow and tied with a pretty ribbon.” He tightened his hold, as much to reassure himself as her – he had come so close to losing her! “It will be well for us here, I promise. Their ways are different, but they are good people. Before the madness was brought upon him, even Ivan had expressed his approval.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, staring at the fine blue-and-white tiled stove which had been their wedding gift from her uncle, a _pechnik_ of some renown who had been dead for many years now. She had thought never to see it again when the tzar’s soldiers had come for her and the children, dragging them from their comfortable home to be imprisoned under heavy guard within the palace. He had known, Ivan, that her husband would come for them regardless of the threat to himself. He had been counting on it. “Ivan meant to kill us, Gregor. The look in his eyes when he had us brought to him…he is mad. I fear for the tzarina now, and their children.”

“She knows to be wary of him when the wolf in his nature is at the fore,” he soothed. Or at least, he hoped she did – this was a new kind of madness, a different wolf than had been there before. “I am sure he tried to tell you I was doing many improper things, most likely with the queen?”

Marta snorted softly. “He tried, I did not believe him – I know my husband. And now that I have seen and spoken to this queen, and her king, I wonder that even in madness he would tell such a lie. They are barely more than children, the both of them!”

That made him laugh outright. “Compared to us, and to Ivan, yes,” he agreed. “There is strength in them, though, and wisdom beyond their years. I will tell you a tale from our voyage, one I had intended to share with Ivan for his amusement: When the djinn Nasim appeared aboard my ship, the queen did not know what he was and I was forced to come to his aid…”

~*~

In the royal wing of the Castle of Arendelle, Elsa was also feeling somewhat restless and not yet ready to go to sleep in spite of being quite tired. John had planned to stay up to talk with her, but not long after putting the children to bed he had fallen asleep and she had decided to let him rest, moving to a chair in front of the fire so she wouldn’t disturb him. They would have time in the morning to discuss more of what had happened, and time every day to follow…her eyes were drawn to the back of his nightshirt, and she shivered. She’d almost screamed when he’d taken off his shirt and she’d seen the nearly foot-long stitched wound which angled across his back; the wound’s tail on the back of his arm was just a red and white line now, but the larger slash was not healing so quickly. Because he kept pulling the stitches, he’d explained, as the guards weren’t able to help him when anyone else was around. “Any sign of weakness now would be a very bad thing,” he’d told her. “Most of the unrest has settled – dangling corpses by the docks tend to have that effect on would-be traitors – but we didn’t want to embolden any other ambitious ones by letting them think they could take me down easily.” Her rush into his arms had made him smile, but he’d held her tightly all the same, nuzzling her hair. “I missed you so much. But it’s all right, really. It’s at least partly my own fault it happened, because it simply never occurred to me that Fritjof would bring his lover back to the castle with him. If I hadn’t failed to check the kitchen entrance, she wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me like that. And Per’s father says I’m healing well, even if I do keep disordering all his good work and making it heal to a worse scar than it had to. He comes every few days to check, on the pretense of escorting his wife so she can check on Maiken. Speaking of which, we’ll need to decide what we’re going to do for a cook when she has the baby – which will be sooner and not later, I think.”

“Oh, definitely. I can’t believe how far along she’s gotten while I was gone.” She’d snuggled into him tighter, letting his warmth seep through her. “I can do at least some of the cooking. And I had Nasim teach me how to make some of the dishes his people enjoy.”

That had made him chuckle. “Oh, the scandal.”

She’d laughed too. “Nasim was rather scandalized himself, when he found out I’d been cooking for Gregor’s crew – not that they knew what to think of it either, but after I threatened to make the man who complained eat last they all kept their thoughts to themselves.”

He’d pushed her back and kissed her at that. “Lucky thing I wasn’t there then, I suppose. They might have died of shock when I pitched in to help you.”

She’d kissed him back. “You’re very good at doing the dishes. Even Belle said so.”

That had made him sigh, and he’d sat down on the side of the bed as though the thought he’d just had was too much to stand up under. “I have to find a way to warn Adam about what’s going on. But we can’t spare any of the guards, and neither of us can leave right now either. Not that I think we should, in fact I suspect that if we did we’d be playing right into the Blue Fairy’s hands. There have been…rumors, from a few of the ships that came into port,” he’d said, very quietly. “Rumors of a closed port in the southern waters, with black flags flying from the watchtower.” She’d gasped, and he’d shaken his head. “So far, it’s just rumors – no one has come to the castle to report anything. I’m still afraid of what could happen, though, because the people of Valeureux won’t have heard those rumors and their trade is still booming so they think nothing of seeing new wagons come in from parts unknown. Adam _needs_ to be warned, a week ago he needed to be. But I just couldn’t leave Gregor’s wife and children to be executed by Tzar Ivan.”

“No, you couldn’t,” she’d assured him, sitting beside him to wrap her arms around him again, letting him feel her acceptance of the terrible decision he’d been forced to make – one of many, while she’d been gone, but perhaps none so close to his heart. “And of course Claude can’t go.”

“No, of course not.” He’d relaxed into her arms, into her understanding, with another and much more tired sigh. “We almost had an argument about it, but he knows he needs to be here for Maiken. I’m not sure he’ll be as…accepting of the decision I made today, though.”

To be honest, although she hadn’t told John so, Elsa wasn’t sure either. It was one of the things keeping her awake, in fact. And so when she saw a blue flicker out of the corner of her eye, she welcomed the distraction. “Who’s there?”

Ari slid out of the shadows and offered her a bow. “You know, your husband has been sitting in that chair staring into the fire just like that almost every night.”

She raised a white-gold eyebrow. “He’s been talking to you? Are you the ‘watchful eye’ Lord Sel has in the castle?”

“Yes. And John talked to me – and I to him – because there was no one else he could freely speak with about the things which were worrying him.” Ari considered for a moment, then ‘sat’ on nothing to put himself at eye-level with her. He was family, and a shade besides, so the apparent liberty was really no such thing. “I believe you understand why, correct?”

Elsa nodded. “I understand, I just don’t like it. And I’m trying not to be angry with Claude.”

“You shouldn’t be angry with Claude,” Ari told her. “He trusted his king enough to leave his child-heavy wife here while he escaped into the mountains with the royal children, and that is a good deal more trust than most men will ever have placed in them. But he also knows now that there are stories he’s not being told, information which is not being shared, and I believe he is beginning to wonder if his trust is no longer returned to the extent that it once was – and if that is due to his own situation having changed, and with it his king’s opinion of his priorities. Claude is having doubts about his value in John’s eyes, Elsa, nothing more.”

“You’ve talked to him too?”

Ari shook his head. “Someone else did.” ‘Someone else’ having been Flavio, who had noticed the problem on his way out, so to speak, and decided to take care of it himself. The Royal Huntsman would doubtless speak to John first thing the next morning and set things between them back to rights, most likely without mentioning the long talk the mercenary captain’s shade had seen fit to have with him. That was Claude’s own business, however, and Ari did not feel he needed to share it. “So what else keeps you awake this night?”

She clasped her hands in her lap, looking to the fire rather than him. “I started this,” she said quietly. “Lord Sel told me not to blame myself…but I can’t seem to help it. If I hadn’t frozen the Fairy Marguerite…”

“Then your husband and brother would be dead and the world would have ended.” Ari shrugged. “You couldn’t have predicted her wand-sisters would react this way, Elsa. And what else could you have done? You had no knowledge of the game that was being played, no one did.”

“No one did,” John echoed, making her jump. He put his arms around her, and the little circle of frost which had formed at her feet in spite of the fire’s warmth melted away. “Sweetheart, if it was anyone’s fault this all went the way it did other than that of arrogant meddling fairies, it was mine. I whisked you away in the middle of the night, remember? I _lied_ to get you to come with me, and put the idea in your head that we needed to find your parents. If I hadn’t done that…”

“Then I would have frozen the entire kingdom solid and gone back to my ice castle?” She looked up at him. “Aren’t you hurting yourself, bending over like this?”

He kissed her. “It hurt me more to hear you blame yourself for the evil other people have done, my love. Now come on, come to bed. I’ve been missing my wife, and all this worrying is keeping her from me…”

Ari quietly faded out of the room, chuckling to himself. John had inherited his silver tongue along with his appearance, apparently.

~*~

When Nasim reappeared in his king’s presence, the Lord of the Desert Wind raised a white eyebrow at him; the heavy manacles the djinn had been wearing were lying at the lord’s feet. “Your return took longer than necessary, but yet your task did not take so long as I had expected.”

Nasim shrugged. “They wanted very little, my king. I kept the watch that a man might sleep, and managed the winds that they might not tear the sails. And the queen requested that I tell her of our homeland, our people, and that I help her with the cooking for Captain Dezhnev and his crew.” That got both eyebrows up, and he did not quite smile. “She is a very unusual woman. She told me she somewhat missed cooking over the camp fire, as she and her brother did when they were seeking their parents. So to please her, I showed her how to prepare spiced meats for cooking on a brazier, as well as how to boil rice and change its flavor to suit her needs.” He shook his head. “I…my king, I know the time was short, but my remorse is truly felt. She Who Holds the Key to the World’s End is the most lovely and gracious of women, and her husband the most honest and just of men. He proved his kingly spurs in her absence by besting the ones who, with that same fairy’s aid, sought to overthrow him and use his children as hostages to guarantee his obedience.”

“And what did he do to earn your respect? Because I can see and hear it.”

“Presented with the choice to have any thing in all the world he might desire, instead of carrying a most dire warning to the man who is as a brother to him, he chose to have me confirm that the harsh missive he had received from Tzar Ivan had been truly sent, and to rescue the family of Captain Dezhnev from Rasseeyah if that were the case.” He nodded when his king’s eyes widened. “The tzar sits blinded by the deceits of the Daughters of Circe, seeing only a web of betrayal which does not truly exist. But there is more. I slowed my return that I might know if their hands were at work in other lands as well. And that is how I know that sickness like a starving jackal creeps in places where it should not be stirring.”

The Lord of the Desert Wind rose to pace the floor, scowling; outside, wind tossed the tall, plume-crowned trees fretfully. “So the fairy folk have broken the seals and stirred the plagues of mortal men once again.”

“Yes, my king. I have seen it.”

“Then your earlier foolishness must have been fated, else we would not have known until it was too late – not even a breath of this news had reached my ears until this moment.” He shook his head. “While you were paying your penance on the sea, the stone-kings sent out a warning of their own: The Daughters of Circe seek to break the power of all who might oppose them. They began with the Lord of the Northern Seas, but it is only a matter of time before they cast their greedy eyes on the other sea lords and from there to the rest of us as well.” He went to the window, frowning at the cloud of sand which was rising beneath the tossing trees, and he reined in his anger to settle it. “This is a war they should know they cannot win…unless they plan to call the Deep Magic.” Behind him, Nasim gasped. “Plans must be made, and you will be the one to help me – this knowledge must be kept close until our own lands and peoples have been secured. We will save what we can, and trust that the Lords of the Seas have plans of their own.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

King Adam of Valeureux was just heading back from visiting one of the properties near the edge of his kingdom when he saw a well-loaded wagon coming up the road, accompanied by two men on horseback. Traders? They hadn’t been expecting anyone…but still, trade was trade, so he raised his hand in greeting. The gesture was immediately returned by one of the riding men, which had the result of throwing back his dark cloak to reveal the clothing underneath, and Adam’s eyes widened. Were those Arendelle’s colors? He hadn’t received any word from John…frowning now, he checked his sword and nudged Dard into a faster trot, and in response the rider who had waved also sped up to meet him. Yes, those were Arendelle’s colors, and her seal, and the man on the horse… “Captain Dezhnev?! What…has something happened?”

The older man reined in his mount and essayed a small bow from his seat. “King Adam, it is good to see you again – although it is Sir Gregor now, as your brother-in-law has made me his Minister of Trade. And the news I bring is both good and not so good. All in Arendelle is as right as it could be when I left, but a month of days ago she was almost overtaken by treachery.”

Adam felt a stirring of fear. “Is everyone all right? Is _John_ all right?”

“As much as a man can be who has had to flush multiple traitors from his service and cannot know if there may yet be more,” Gregor told him. He took a letter from inside his coat and handed it over. “From his hand to yours. He had a quicker way he might have delivered it…but he instead chose to use that boon to see my wife and children safely restored to me, and so I told him I would bring his news to you myself. We need to re-negotiate our trade agreement with you anyway, as Rasseeyah has broken off relations with Arendelle.”

Adam made a face. Even in Valeureux rumors had been heard about the tzar’s sudden descent into madness, and the instability Rasseeyah was experiencing as a result. “They’re not at war, are they?”

Gregor snorted, nudging his horse into step with Adam’s and waving to the wagon’s driver and the guard to follow them; both were former members of his crew who had chosen not to return to Rasseeyah, and one more such had remained in Arendelle as a welcome addition to the depleted ranks of the Royal Guards. “My cousin may be mad, but he is not so far gone he has forgotten that the young queen who so greatly enjoyed his company can also freeze his ships in the harbor if he displeases her. So no, Ivan will keep his soldiers at home with his ships, as he no doubt wishes not to lose either. And his reticence, not to mention the stories which are now being told about the ruthlessness of Arendelle’s king, has made the King of the Danes doubly wary. King John says he is expecting no problems from that quarter for at least a little while.”

“But he is still expecting problems, of course.” And no doubt planning for them already, because planning ahead was what John did best. “So the King of Arendelle is rumored to be ruthless now?”

A shrug. “He executed a traitor in front of one of the loud fools who daily demand his audience; the guards tell me the populace is unsure what to make of him now, and also now wary of displeasing him too much. If nothing else, they will remember that those who threaten his children will be given no quarter, and shown no mercy.” And then he chuckled. “Although the king’s need to keep his children where his eye could see them in the wake of the attempted coup has produced an interesting effect in that quarter as well. The Crown Prince has taken quite a liking to being present when his father puts these excuses for men in their place, and His Majesty jokes that the people of Arendelle should learn to step more carefully, as the boy will doubtless continue to take amusement from such confrontations once he has grown.”

That made Adam smile, but it didn’t last. “He had to keep the children with him? What happened to their nurse? She wasn’t…”

Gregor held up a hand. “That is not a subject we may safely discuss in the open air, Your Majesty. The webs of treachery in Arendelle were woven both wide and strong, and even still we do not know the full extent to which they may have reached. Behind the protecting stones of your castle, then and only then may we speak freely of what has happened…and of what may be yet to come.”

Protecting stones…a fairy must have been involved, then. And possibly in the attempted coup as well? A chill ran down Adam’s spine at the implications of that, but all he said was, “Very well, we will take our discussion where curious ears will not overhear it. And it will be my pleasure to show you the hospitality of Valeureux, Sir Gregor.”

The older man nodded; the warning had been received. “I will accept that offer with pleasure, King Adam. I have heard much of your beautiful kingdom, whose only imperfection is that she is not near the sea.”

That made Adam laugh out loud, and they continued on up the road to the village making lighter discussion regarding trade and gossip. They were unaware that black-button eyes were watching them from the concealment of a tree’s green leaves, the nearest of which were withering somewhat around the edges. The small bird with the blue breast cheeped to itself unhappily. Her Ladyship was not going to be pleased by this new development…

 


End file.
